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Today is our second wedding anniversary.

I don't even know where to start.

Obviously this past year has dealt us our fair share of trials.  If told me a year ago that our second year of marriage would have been so challenging, I am not sure I would have believed them.  I certainly wouldn't have wanted to.

When you are young and get married, you picture all the adventures ahead of you.  Happiness.  Babies.  Building a home.  Careers.  Basically just rainbow and sunshine.  Sadness, illness, and heartbreak aren't supposed to come until much later.  But there is a reason wedding vows include "in sickness and in health", "in good times and in bad".  Marriage isn't for the faint of heart.

I'd like to think that if the roles had been reversed, that I would have taken care of Phil with as much selflessness and devotion as he did for me.  But I know that isn't totally true.  I don't think I would have done as good of a job as he did.  What I have learned in my second year of marriage is that I definitely married up.

While our second year of marriage hasn't been perfect, it has been filled with lessons in love and marriage that I think bond us together more than most couples who have been together for much longer than us.  Lingerie hasn't been pulled out of the dresser drawers for quite a while, but the fleece pants and thermal shirts are seen regularly.  Romantic dinners have involed eating anything that includes iodine.  Evenings spent cuddling usually also involve crying (stupid hormones).  And for a while there, showering together was a necessity so he could wash my hair.

With tears, surgeries, scars, scans, and cancer Phil has showed me that his love for me is more than physical attraction and my witty personality. And I am so much more in love with him because of it.  That is the best anniversary present I could ever ask for. 

Happy Anniversary Love!  I love you!  And here's to some happier adventures in our third year.