Today is Tom’s and my 38th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe. The years just fly by. But, although my wedding anniversary is the most important anniversary today, I celebrate multiple anniversaries around the same time. Five years ago, on April 22, we moved into the RV full-time. Five years ago, on May 22, I started writing the blog. And, five years ago, on June 30, I retired.
As I said, my wedding anniversary is the most important of the multiple anniversaries. I couldn’t imagine living this long with anyone except Tom. He is, and always has been, the only man I could love and marry. After all these years together I respect him more than ever. He is never boring. He pushes me into new adventures (as I push him). We keep each other from getting stuck in ruts. Being with him helps me be the best person I can be.
Five years ago we started on this new retired adventure together. Being retired allows us to explore new ways of growing and being together. When we were both working we hardly saw each other and rarely did anything together. Now we spend most of every day together, working with a common purpose. Sometimes I wish we could do our own thing a little more. But we give each other space and have developed some new, individual interests in our retirement.
We still like living in the RV. Right now we are suffering from an invasion of big, black ants. They are easy to spot and kill, but we aren’t sure where they are coming from. You can, however, have invasions of ants in houses, so it isn’t unique to the RV. I think some people are surprised that we have lasted five years in the RV. Of the multiple anniversaries, this has been the easiest. Living with less isn’t really a problem when you live in gorgeous locations that change every few months. We feel like our lives are richer with less stuff and less to do.
Writing the blog is part of that multiple anniversaries thing. Five years seems like a long time to write five blog posts a week. That’s 1,300 blog posts. I am very thankful for my faithful readers, especially those of you who comment on the pages or send me e-mails letting me know you are reading. I write partly for myself, so I can remember what I have done and where we have been. But if no one was reading, I would quickly stop. Like anything that takes discipline, there are times when I am tempted to stop.
Celebrating these multiple anniversaries means there are things I have stuck with: marriage, retirement, the RV, the blog. And these things remind me of how blessed I am. Thank you for being one of the people that God has put on my path.
What anniversaries are you celebrating? How has sticking with something blessed you?