In that moment when the plane peeled away from the runway, I pinched my eyes closed to keep myself from unraveling. I don’t like flying. But there we were, floating up into the air. My husband sat next to me with his hand over mine as we headed toward Northern California to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.
Ten years is a long time. If you’re a glass of milk or a forgotten tube of anti-wart medication, 10 years is a really long time. But if you’re a sequoia or a stegosaurus, it’s no time at all. I suppose you could say my husband and I are somewhere between a glass of rancid milk and a tree.
As we flew higher, miles away from the familiar, I thought of how we got here. After an entire decade, we finally feel like adults instead of kids pretending.
I remember feeling nervous flying to Paris on our honeymoon. I was overwhelmed and prayed to God that we didn’t burn up into a hundred screaming flames. I remember looking into my new husband’s blue-gray eyes, and he squeezed my hand and said, “We did it,” or something perfectly cliche like that. I smiled and stared out the plane window seeing only white, and I remember thinking we had fooled our wedding guests into seeing us as capable adults. We were just kids, off to explore. I couldn’t comprehend I was someone’s wife, and I didn’t yet understand what that meant.
As time went on, we grew up together. We had gotten married right out of college and grew through the hardships and challenges. We had our first baby soon after we celebrated our first wedding anniversary. The disarray of being newly married and the frenzy of becoming new parents intertwined into one nice congealed ball of stress-sweats and baby vomit. Despite the chaos, we threw ourselves into it all.
Part of what makes our relationship fulfilling is that we genuinely like each other. It’s a basic and fundamental truth, incredibly necessary. Of course, there are the daily “I love you’s.” But every once in a while, we like to throw in a, “Hey! I actually like you.” It’s as if we’ve unearthed something inspiring. Like “Oh, wow! It’s still you and you’re rad!” It means I love you, yes, but also that I actually like who you are and I want to spend my time with you. It means I think you’re neat, and I want to start a rock band with you. You be lead guitar and vocals, and I’ll be drums and the occasional harmonica. Because more songs need to have harmonica solos.
Our marriage has been heavy at times. We got lost in heated emotions when we had our babies. Because babies take your world and drool all over it.
We have three children: The first came as a surprise, the second was considered and the third barely made it out of birth alive. My husband and I were grounded by these powerful moments; they were huge and defined us. Our kids made our relationship stronger. They sweetened us and rounded our edges.
But now we are entering a new part of our relationship. We are done making humans. We bought a house and are no longer in a rapid state of growth. We’ve switched out of survival mode and moved into existing. Our lives have taken shape and feel simple as an established and mature couple. Although, we still think farts are funny, so we’re not that mature.
And then another metaphor struck me (because everything is a metaphor for something else, right?). My marriage is a flight on a commercial aircraft.
When we were first married, we were just taking off — the pilot pushed the thrusters to full acceleration, and suddenly we were in the sky flying at abnormal speeds. The clouds curtsied toward us and gave us a round of applause, and everything around us was small and menial.
Then we found out we were pregnant, and it felt as if the pilot had cut the engines and we were going to crash. It was scary — everyone on the plane felt it. We all looked around unified in our confusion, fear and panic. OH, MY GOD, WE’RE GOING DOWN! But we didn’t go down. Instead, we were lifted higher into the atmosphere, where it was golden and we could see the infinite ocean. Then the plane leveled off and cruised. And that’s when I remembered I was in love, and my skin rippled with joy because all of it was overwhelming.
Now we are at cruising altitude, and there are clear skies for the time being. All we can see is the skyline: orangey and brilliant.
I woke up with the sunrise that first morning of our anniversary trip. I’m not generally a “morning person,” but there was the sun, urging me to get out of bed, encouraging me to go outside and inhale the glossy break of day. I pulled my husband from the warm bed, and we went outside to feel the grass under our feet and plan out the rest of our lives: 10 years down and 75 more to go.
During our trip, we walked through redwood forests, explored, breathed the piney air into our lungs, planned, promised new habits and forgave. We closed our eyes tight until they sparkled and stung, then we opened them to freshness and we reset. We made more intentions, and then we went to the ocean, dug a deep hole and buried our plans deep in the sand. We made plans 10 years ago, then space and time and gravity and life took in our ideals and two-dimensional views and set fire to them.
In exchange, we were gifted with so much more than we ever thought possible.
We created this life by living it, and plans have been pushed aside, forgotten and surrendered. Now we simply open our hands and release ourselves to the adventure on the horizon.
