I’ve been a bit nostalgic lately, so I think looking through photo albums a few weeks ago to find pictures of my husband and I to put into a collage frame was probably not good timing. As I got to our wedding album, I found a photo of our first dance together, and I started crying. My husband, who was scanning photos into the computer for me, stopped what he was doing and bent down next to me and asked what was wrong. I pulled out a photo of us dancing and said this. He looked at me a bit perplexed, but didn’t say much but rather pulled me close and held me. He knows by now my emotions burst out of me uncontrollably at times and has learned to comfort and not question.
So why did that picture bring my emotions to the forefront? One reason could be because our twenty-fourth wedding anniversary and twenty-seven years together is just around the corner, and it struck me how quickly time flies. Another reason could be because we looked so young I almost didn’t recognize the people in the photo. Another possibility is the love on his face and happiness displayed in the photo took me back to a time and feelings that were still so prominent in every look, touch and moment of our lives. It perhaps was a little of all those things, but mostly it was a realization that our twenty-seven years of love and twenty-four years of marriage reminds me of that dance oh so long ago. Isn’t after all marriage a dance?
In the beginning of our relationship, we danced slow and cautious, perhaps afraid to show too many of our moves and become embarrassed if the other found us to be strange. For us, the movements were separate, but somehow in sync. We stared into each other’s eyes and never really tired. It was the beginning. It was new. It was almost as if we had invented a new dance; one that no one had ever danced before.
We continued the slow dance for some time, but eventually became closer until we touched and moved as one. As time moved on, the dance would change. Sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes it would stay the same for a long time. There have been periods in our lives where we danced together. Times in our lives we danced separately, but one thing remained the same. We were always connected…eye to eye.
Dancing has never come easy to me. I shy to display it for all to see, but somehow with him, I dance confident. I dance unafraid. He brings that out in me. I don’t move with ease and grace, so it is no surprise marriage does not come easy to me either, but I’ve kept dancing anyways. It’s the movement and closeness that matters. Even when we dance apart, I know he is not far away, and eventually our movement will bring us closer.
So as our anniversary looms closer, we’ll dance our way there together and enjoy the connection this marriage has brought us, and I hope you are lucky enough to dance a dance like ours!
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