A Perfectly Imperfect Reminder
By Amy Miller
Today is a special day :) Four years ago on October 25th, Trevor and I made our relationship official. See, it was declared on facebook so it was official … haha
This morning I went through my old journal from that time we were first dating and it was so special to go back and read all of that. I obviously knew our timeline and the words we said but there was something so tender about reading about it all, and especially my feelings during the rise of our relationship. AND OF COURSE, I learned something that I felt important to share.
The LITTLE NEGATIVE asterisk*
Us becoming boyfriend and girlfriend comes with this little negative asterisk next to it because the following week I got so much anxiety over it, and questioned our relationship and questioned Trevor. You could say I had a little freak-out and it kills me that I almost let that ruin everything we have built today. At the same time, though I think it was almost necessary for us being where we are today.
Five months earlier, I had just gotten out of a long relationship that ended badly, and my guard started going up thinking that Trevor was too good to be true. I started doing the cliche self-sabotaging things like questioning if he deserved better than me, and then I started trying to find reasons why I should break up with him to save myself from getting hurt again.
Grateful for it
What is interesting, though, is that I did find a legitimate reason to not want to be in a relationship at that time; I loved my independence and enjoying all my time to myself haha, and I felt that was fleeting somehow. Trevor was more of the opposite and that was hard for me initially. You could say that was our first hurdle, but we were able to jump over that hurdle after about two weeks! And so many special memories came immediately after that.
So even though I get sad that I had a freak-out moment that put a damper on the beginning of our relationship, I’m grateful for it. It proved to me that we could make it. That if Trevor could turn around these fears and worries I had right then, he could do it in the future. And he’s been doing that ever since :)
Remember your story
I have teary eyes right now typing all of this because it really was such a special reminder! It helped remind me that through all the beautiful ‘stars and butterflies’ moments we have had over the past four years, we have also had to jump some hurdles since the beginning. And I believe the hurdles have made our relationship sweeter.
So cheers to us! Jumping hurdles since October 2012! hahaha. And cheers to YOU, and your perfectly imperfect relationship!
People tend to forget the little details to the beginnings of their love story, and we don’t even realize it. I even found a few other things in my journals that I forgot about. In the midst of tough times in your marriage, it’s easy to look back at those early falling in love years and think it was more romantic and you’d rather be back there again. That was a fun time, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t without its difficulties, either. I’m glad that I can look back at those first hurdles with pride and with gratitude.
If you haven’t read your journal entries of when you first dated in awhile, or haven’t looked at those early pictures in awhile, go and do that! Not only will you see how far you have come through both sweet and difficult experiences, but it will fill your heart with that twitterpated feeling all over again :)