Our 12th Anniversary

Okay, so technically our anniversary was on Sunday, but I don’t blog on Sundays, so here we are!

photo credit shout-out to my favorite photographer: Ellen Jalosky!

TWELVE years.

Derrick & I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary this past weekend (and we actually celebrated it in the state we got engaged – Florida! And at the park we visited the day before we got engaged – Sea World! That was fun!)

Something about the number “12” seems so monumental.
It’s hard to describe, but let me try: the years have flown by in the blink of an eye. In so many aspects, it seems like we were counting down the days until our wedding just yesterday. In fact, I see the statuses I wrote on Facebook pop up in my Timehop app, counting down the days, lamenting wedding planning problems, but overall bursting with glee over finally being married. Those days and feelings still seem so fresh in my memory.
But at the same time, I look at them down the tunnel (that gets longer and longer) of a 12-year timespan. And when I pull back and look at the path that we’ve walked the last 12 years to get to today, our wedding day seems like ages ago.

We have come so far since that day we got married.
We are different people.
We are parents.
We are debt free (except for our house).
We have hopes & dreams & plans.
We have a focus for what we want the future to look like and we’re working hard toward our goals.

12 years is a long time, but it’s also so short.
12 years feels like forever, and yet it’s just the beginning.

Happy anniversary, Derrick Abbey.
Thanks for putting up with me for the last 12 years – and you’re welcome for me putting up with you.
Cheers to the next 12 months – and the next 12 years.
May they only serve to bring us closer to each other.
I love you more today than I did yesterday and will love you more tomorrow than I did today.

PS: If you’d like to re-live some of my past wedding anniversary posts, you can see them here:
Year 11
Year 10
Year 6
Year 5
Year 4
Year 3