Twenty-Seven Years, One Suitcase, and a Life I Never Expected

 

Today marks our 27^th wedding anniversary and as I sit down to write about it, I still cannot wrap my mind around it…27 years…where did they go?

When I met and then later, agreed to marry my husband I didn’t know that my life would change almost completely. And not because of the marriage, no. Because, unbeknownst to me, I would embark on a journey that would change my life. Naïve as I was, having been born under a communist regime that liked to keep us ignorant and uninformed, I didn’t have any idea what would mean to me to travel and settle myself across the world. For love. For having someone in my life. A partner.

I arrived in a country that was different from anything I had known or imagined. Different religion, different customs and holidays, different language and totally different climate.

How do you build a family when everything around you is strange and unfamiliar?

It wasn’t easy, I must confess. But, in a sense, it forced me to try and make it work, because I had already chosen this life and I was determined to make the best of it. It is easy, when things don’t work in a marriage, to just pack one’s bags and leave, isn’t it? It is more difficult though when leaving is not an option. Because then, you have to find a way to get by, to cope.

If someone ever tells you that marriage, partnership are easy, don’t believe them, they’re liars. Marriage, as any other human relationship is complicated and not straightforward. Sometimes you are facing certain situations that make you think “I’m done” and then you step back to gain a bit of perspective and try to find solutions instead of just walking away.

After 27 years of marriage, I can tell you, marriage is hard work. Compromises. Good days and bad days. Decisions that have to be made. Kids that must be raised and educated. Tears. Joy and sorrow. Money. Responsibility. Words that elevate and words that hurt. And some days, just putting one foot in front of the other.

And the real test of a marriage doesn’t come during good times. No, it comes during bad times, when you have to grit your teeth and try to survive, to come out of it (mostly) unscathed.

And that’s marriage for you.

So, happy anniversary to us, to our struggles and our moments of happiness, to everything we built together and, I hope, to many more years to come.