Why Blog? Why Now?

I am starting this journey from overly independent. Those who know me best would emphatically agree. But as an outsider looking at an almost five year relationship, transitioning in to a ten month engagement and lifetime marriage, this blog's essence would seem complete before it's start.

But the stats of a relationship's past, do not make a relationship's future...and the journey begins each day anew. And each day's compromise of independence and interdependence has its own unique twist. So...I blog. Because that's what we self-important 21st century people do to express ourselves.

And I blog now because I realize, three months in to this engagement, that while there is an abundance of advice available to get people from "she said yes" to "I do; " there is little guidance for what comes after the "I do." I cannot begin to fathom all that comes after the dancing shoes are put away and the last plate is cleared at the reception; but with the honest and open examples of our parents' struggles and successes and the enduring love of fifty+ years of marriage with four sets of grandparents, surely we have a solid start to figuring it out?

In the marriage vows of the United Methodist tradition I am a part of, there is a phrase that has caught my attention at wedding after wedding. In the exchanging of the rings, the bride and groom both say

with all that I am

and all that I have

I cherish you

Well all that I am seems like quite the offering. And all that I have? Well that's not much...but it is what I have been given and what I have earned, right?! How do I share that when I have been shaped to be miss independent? And how do we each retain our individualism while becoming a team? I'm sure that the crowd of fifty+ years of marriage would tell us that there is not just one easy answer...

So I blog, now. With all that I am and all that I have.

CHERISH.

eqf