Our First Year as Husband and Wife

I just finished cleaning the apartment for our anniversary weekend before Alex gets home from work. I put out all our framed pictures, got a variety of white flowers to put around in vases and just make the place as romantic as our little home can be. We will be going away for our anniversary for a nice dinner and a stay at an amazing hotel near the coast so we are looking very forward to that!
This year has been crazy! From the wedding to now, seems as though it has been non stop! Along with all the great things that have happened, there have definitely been a few downers. I was reminded though as I shopped for Alex's gift yesterday how thankful I should be and how I should not take one moment for granted. I really try not to anyway, but sometimes those few bad occurrences throughout life can just make everything dark and gray. I went to find an anniversary journal I had seen online. It has a chapter to write your memories of the wedding and significant events throughout your first year, then a section for every anniversary after that until the "golden years" section where the anniversaries continue through 65! I thought, wow! isn't that something! 65 YEARS! we'll be 95! God willing we make it that far (health wise, not marriage wise). So I went to check out and the associates were wrapping my gift and while I was waiting and older woman came in and asked for thank you cards, she said her husband had just past and she wanted to send thank you notes to all the people who had sent her their sympathy. I though, how nice. I also had to really try to hold my tears back! I thought, here I am in the same room with someone who just sadly lost her husband (probably of many years) and I am buying my husband our first anniversary present. I thought about our first year and all the joys and the disappointments we've had and how those disappointments have only made us grow closer together and learn how to get through them. Not to sound too cliche, but life is full of disappointments and it just nice to have someone there to pick you up when your down and its nice to do the picking up sometimes. (Ugh, again, those tears just find their way, even as I type) I though about our future and what it will bring. All the moments yet to be enjoyed! As I'm sure that woman would say, those are the things we'll remember. And with each joyful moment I get a little sad, because the time already seems to be going so fast. I want to slow it down...About ten years ago I would say I couldn't wait to be married and have a place of my own, and now, it's here. Now we say, we want a house, less debt! and kids and I'm sure that even though they seem kinda far off now, in the blink of an eye they'll be here too; just as the time flew before. So I told myself when I left the store that I would make the absolute best of this week and the rest of my life. Despite our worries with my back, finances, etc. I know that things will work themselves out. They always do and worrying doesn't do anything to better the outcome for speed or slow things down. I think that encounter was perfect coincidence just to get me out of the rut I felt I had been in. Just like that, our first year is almost done. We are going to celebrate it and enjoy each others company. I know that when that 65th year rolls around and we're writing in our journal this weekend will seem like it was just the year before, and with a tear in my eye I will be just as much in love.