In case you were wondering if this is a “life is perfect, marriage is so awesome all the time” post, it’s not. Yesterday was our anniversary, and neither of us woke up madly in love with each other. But we know how to connect, and talk through things. I’m just being real here.
There are 2,852 images of us together in our Amazon photos account. These are four images that are the highlights. However, there are plenty of lowlights between the images as well, and I am going to point out some of the big ones here.
We met the summer after 10th grade. Taylor was outgoing, and one of the things I liked most about her was the way she was nice to people, and had the unique ability to rally people to play a game, go to a party, etc. She still has this trait, and it’s attractive.
After this image, there was college, other boyfriends/girlfriends, etc. She moved to Elon to do Intervarsity, and after I graduated college, I moved to the Dominican Republic to teach English. This all took place over about 8 years. 8 years in the friend zone.
One Thanksgiving phone call, she said she liked me. And that was all it took.
Shortly after, I moved to where she was- in Harrisonburg, VA- with only $600 to my name. No car, no phone, and only a summer internship to go on. There was absolutely no backup plan. And no finances to rely on as a parachute.
We got married at Grace Community Church. A small part of our wedding video went viral- but I won’t go into that here.
After the wedding, we lived in Virginia for the next 3 years or so.
Taylor is so cute, and she has no idea she could do much, much better than me.
Virginia was great. We got our first house, and had lots of fun with friends. But there were definitely some low lights during that time.
I was fired from my job. I was let go of another job. This was terrifying, and I still think we both carry some PTSD from how that impacted us.
We had trouble getting pregnant with Rosie during those years. It was sad, y’all. Again, I won’t go into the details here, but the images posted are by far the highlights; but there were plenty of low-lights to tell the story between the images.
Taylor VERY shortly after having a c-section. She might kill me for posting this image up here.
We finally got to meet Rosie. At this point, we moved to NC several months before. Taylor was pregnant when we moved, and her parents let us move in for a few months while we looked for our next house.
Rosie was born, and we were house-poor. It was great though- because we really prayed and waited to meet this little girl. Again, how we got pregnant with Rosie is a long story I won’t go into now.
I was selling print advertising at the time. To this day, I can’t tell if it was because the Greensboro economy is terrible, or if I was just really bad at it, but I did not hit my “numbers” and was let go. Another lowlight.
This time, I went to see a career coach. After a barrage of personality tests, skills and interests tests, etc, she said “sales is a terrible idea for you. You should probably do IT”. So I did. And haven’t looked back: it has been very rewarding for me.
We found a church we liked. We wanted Rosie to be a big sister. There were some pregnancies that didn’t work out. There was an adoption where the mom changed her mind. We prayed a lot during that time. There were some lowlights for sure.
Mercy Ren was born in the same hospital I was. It was during Covid, so no guests were allowed. But Rosie was a big sister.
Guys, I love Taylor. I really do. But life is messy. There are plenty of hard things. So far, what I have learned is that waiting has been a theme: wait 9 years to date tay, 3 years to have Rosie, 5 years to have Mercy; 9 years to find the right career path.
We have prayed through lot’s of junk over the years. There is no other way. And l am no Prince Charming- I am grumpy without enough sleep, and need to do better about that.
At this point, I have known Taylor 23 years: this is WELL over 1/2 my life. And I know I could never marry better than her. She is a saint. She is a much better mom than I ever could have imagined. She works hard. She reads her Bible. And, just like when we were 16, she is nice to people, and I love that about her.
Though our 13th anniversary was on a Monday this year, Friday night will be date night- and both of us will wake up a little more “madly in love” than we were on Monday.
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