On July 5, I wrote a blog post for the first time in a year. It was filled with gratitude and hope. Life is looking vastly different than it was four months ago.
On August 13, 2016, our home flooded. We were not the only people on our street to flood. We weren’t the only ones of our friends that flooded. We were not the only people at our workplaces that flooded. But when we saw the water creeping into our home, we have never felt more alone, and also so much like a team.
Facing this disaster was best premarital counseling we could have received. We came together to work through the trauma of watching the home we worked so hard to buy and furnish and make our own be torn apart (by some of our best friends and coworkers and family that we will forever be grateful for). Looking back on those first days following the flood, I can only assume I survived without falling into a week-long (month-long) panic attack because Jeromy was there. When I was weak, he was strong. When he was weak, I was strong. We are certainly better together than apart.
One month and four days after our home flooded, we were married under an old oak tree outside a Victorian home with our favorite family and friends in attendance. It was perfect and wonderful and completely indescribable without falling into cliches and metaphors. Everyone thinks that their wedding was amazing, but honestly, our wedding could not have been more perfect. The ceremony was short and beautiful and so personal. Then, we danced the entire night away.
Two months later, and I’m still having trouble putting into words how big of a thing marriage is.
We’ve had our ups and downs. (No, seriously, I laugh at those people who buy a bottle of wine to be opened after they’ve had their first fight. We’ve already had about 15, and that’s a lot of wine.) It’s not easy being homeless, even if you are living with some very best friends who have a really adorable 5 month old. It’s not easy watching your home get ripped apart and slowly (so slowly) get put back together. It’s not easy asking for money from friends and family and coworkers to pay the biggest bill we will ever have to pay.
But we overcame. And we are stronger for it.
In the weeks leading up to the wedding, people asked Jeromy and I if we were nervous, and the answer was always an resounding no. We know that there is no other person for us in life.
