Jr High Student or a Dog

Mac and I just celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary.  During the last couple of months when we would tell people that, we would get a variation of the same questions:

"How can you be married to the same person for that long?"

and/or

"How old were you when you got married, 10?"

Really, 12 years isn't that long.  It is all about perspective. If we were talking about a person, we would be talking about someone in 6th grade and that, really, isn't very old.  However, if you were talking about a dog, 12 years would be pretty darn old. I would rather think that our relationship is more like a jr high student... Well, I think...

How does our relationship work? We love, laugh, talk, agree, disagree, respect each other, argue, learn, apologize, forgive, accept, and reflect.  We do the best when we set goals and work towards them together.  This especially works when the goal is make Carrie happy... 

Sometimes We do have conflict but this usually happens when we set opposite goals, like

Mac: Clean house

Carrie: New Pinterest project or playing with the girls or watching reality tv or anything other than cleaning the house.

Every year we improve.  We are better at loving.  We are better at laughing.  We are better at arguing forgiving.  Every year we continue to learn from each other.  We continue to grow independently and together. We respect each other.  We accept each other, and ourselves, for who we are. 

Next year we will be celebrating lucky #13.  Our goal; not to walk under any ladders, cross the path of a black cat, or break any mirrors.  We've got this.

Obviously, we really were 10 when we got married.  Our engagement picture, which was taken back in the stone ages before all engagement pictures look like magazine layouts, is proof that our parents had to sign permission slips for us to miss school in order for us to make it to our big day.