Celebrating our 12 Year Wedding Anniversary, Today

in GEMS4 years ago

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Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.

—Elif Şafak
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Today, I’m counting my blessings. I, who thought I would never marry, have been happily wed for a full dozen years to a sweet, fun-loving and giving girl! What's more I, now, advise incorrigible bachelors or those on the fence, to take the plunge--since we can only do so much growing by ourselves, whereas I believe being married takes us to a higher level.

Both of us were a touch shy about the ceremonies, however, and didn’t want a big, official wedding party. So we, quietly, eloped and had a civil marriage. Then, again, we married in a church. Finally, we celebrated by piggy-backing onto my father-in-law’s lavish birthday party and invited our closest friends and family. Being Egyptian, and given my wife's love of dance, there was choreographed bellydancing involved and authentic outfits to go along with it, provided by a friend.

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

— Rumi
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For this reason, I often forget our anniversaries (we have three!) and my wife is kind enough to gently remind me. The bliss and lessons of marriage, far too many to enumerate, here, include such acts of patience, forgiveness and indulgence.

There is a beautiful poem, a clear-sighted ode, which illustrates better than I can the teamwork required to make a union work:

Marriage

You are holding up a ceiling
with both arms. It is very heavy,
but you must hold it up, or else
it will fall down on you. Your arms
are tired, terribly tired,
and, as the day goes on, it feels
as if either your arms or the ceiling
will soon collapse.

But then,
unexpectedly,
something wonderful happens:
Someone,
a man or a woman,
walks into the room
and holds their arms up
to the ceiling beside you.

So you finally get
to take down your arms.
You feel the relief of respite,
the blood flowing back
to your fingers and arms.
And when your partner’s arms tire,
you hold up your own
to relieve him again.

And it can go on like this
for many years
without the house falling.

—Michael Blumenthal

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This, of course, is the ideal of matrimony, and much (self) work is required to realize it and become a worthy partner. Unconditional love and selfishness are not compatible.
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Wishing you, Love, all ways, dear reader. Below, are more inspiring quotes:
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Love is what's left in a relationship after all the selfisheness has been removed.

—Cullen Hightower
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Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.

―Ursula K. Le Guin
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