Five Years

The last couple of months have been marked with some serious marital discord in my extended family. It hurts to watch people you love struggle with hard choices and pain, and be able to only offer your support and love. I am a "fixer". I'm generally not the kind of person who is seeking sympathy when something is wrong. I'm the kind of person who wants to know how to make it better. When it comes to marriage and divorce, however, there is often no way to fix things. While I do not doubt that divorce is sometimes the only way to make a less than ideal situation better, I do not generally see it as a "solution", particularly when there are children involved. I sincerely hope that I am never in the position where divorce looks like my best option.
I've said this before in this blog, but I'm going to say it again. Marriage is hard. Marriage is work. Marriage is something that requires a huge amount of effort and respect and commitment from both parties. Even under the best, most ideal of circumstances, everyone I have ever talked to about marriage says that it can often be anything but a walk in the park. In spite of all that, though, a good marriage can be one of the most rewarding relationships one can hope to have. A good marriage is very, extremely worth the effort and the struggle and the hard times.
Finding words to describe the true nature of my marriage is difficult. Landon is much, much more than my companion or my spouse. He is my closest, most dear friend. He loves me and understands me in a way that no one else does. He trusts me with the most important task a person could possible trust another with in raising his children. All of his efforts and his focus in life is on giving me and our children a good life. He wants nothing more than for me to be truly happy.
In just over a week, Landon and I will be celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary. While that seems like such a long time at this point in my life, I hope that it is just a small drop in the bucket of our lives together. I know how truly lucky I am to have found Landon, and how lucky we are to have a good marriage. I know how lucky we both are to have found someone with the same level of commitment and dedication to each other and to our family as we found in each other.
I am so grateful for the 5 years I have had with my husband, Landon, and I hope that it is still just the beginning of a long, happy road together.

Life is Good

I started blogging for a few reasons. For one, I have always wanted to journal, but I have never done so consistently. I thought that since I waste so much time online as it is, I may as well turn that time into something productive-ish. Another reason I wanted to write a blog was to try to force myself to see the blessings in my life. Something I firmly believe is that living with gratitude in your heart will make you a happier person. Who doesn't want to be happy, right? Building on that idea, I wasn't feeling particularly happy at the junction in my life when I started this blog, so I was also trying to teach myself how to be a happy person.
There have been a lot of ups and downs in terms of how often I post to this blog since I started over a year ago. There was a stretch there where I was averaging 1.5-2 posts a week, and that made me feel like I finally found a consistent way to journal. It was also helping me to think about the blessings in my life, if only so I would have something to write about later. And I really was starting to feel happier from day to day. All of this is awesome. Really awesome.
The side effect of all this happiness is that I haven't been struggling as much. I was generally using my blog as a forum to find blessings in the struggles, but I just haven't been struggling. Less struggling has meant fewer posts, which is fine.
Today I want to express my gratitude for the opportunity to remember my blessings and therefore be happy this blog has afforded me. I'm glad I started it and I am grateful that it has been the tool I had hoped it would be. I am grateful for the happiness I am experiencing more regularly in my life, and the blessings that affords me and my family.
Life is good.