"I'll light the fire, you put the flowers in the vase that you bought today"

Seb and I are officially celebrating our seven years together today. We're apart all this week because of his job so we can't actually celebrate tonight. There isn't much to do about that but accept it. We celebrated a little last night though, wine and candles and some very good grilled St. Jacques eaten by the fire. It was a nice evening of reminiscing and discussing the highlights of our life together so far.

It's been a tough year for our marriage, probably the toughest. We like being together a lot, both coming from parents who were always together all the time. Both my parents and Seb's can count on one hand the number of nights they've spent apart. Some couples find this tiring but we find it a comforting reminder of how we were raised. We like being in each other's company even if we do bicker so much my mother has dubbed us The Hatfields & The McCoys. Anyway being apart so many days this last year has been really hard on us. I have to be honest that sometimes I feel like a stranger is walking through the door when Seb comes home on Friday nights. When you aren't together all week communication becomes really difficult. You miss everything so you can't really understand issues that are simply dumped in your lap on the weekend. You feel like you're always playing catch-up all the time.

Other things have been tough for us this year too, redoing the house, our relentless pursuits at having a baby, raising a high spirited toddler and trying to understand the recent bizarre attitudes of our extended family. It has been no a cakewalk this seventh year. It's been a challenge.

Last night as we reflected about our past, laughing about the good things and wondering how we'd survived others we kept coming back to a time when we were deliriously happy. It was in a very small apartment, 27 square meters to be exact, in Veyrier du Lac. We lived in the smallest of furnished hovels underneath our proprietor's deluxe chalet. We didn't have much, nothing really. I think I had a suitcase full of clothes and another full of books and beauty products. Seb had "divorced" his long time live-in girlfriend The Dominatrice and so he didn't have much other than the clothes on his back and a series of "halved" pictures of himself. We lived in paradise though surrounded completely by the mountains. We had each other and Seb came home for lunch every day and was home each evening at 6 o'clock. We were head over heels happy.

After talking I was humming the song Suite Judy Blue Eyes by one of my favorite songwriters, Stephen Stills. There was a line in the song that I was reminded of. It's a break-up song so it doesn't really apply to us but this one line says: "Don't let the past, remind us of what we are not now, I am not dreaming..." This line in this beautiful song rings so true. How many couples like us get so hung up on the magic of their past that they forget to look to the future for happiness. We talked about this and discussed our future and how excited we are to see what the next few years will bring,--Mexico, lots of visits to Florida, watching Little S grow up and maybe if we're lucky another baby. We even agreed that it was entirely possible that even better times than our mythical apartment days lie ahead. We shouldn't get too hung up on that past. There is so much to look forward to.

Adaptation.

I really think this is the key ingredient to a successful marriage, understanding that both of us will change and our couple will gradually become something else. Learning to embrace changes is difficult but if we can do this I believe we will be here in another seven years. Who knows, maybe we'll even be reminiscing about now and what a wonderful time it was.

Okay here are some photos of our life. Most were taken back in the day so they're a little blurry & flat from the scanning, sorry. I have not yet scanned the marriage photos. I'll bore you with those another day.


We met here in Annecy by the River Thiou at the restaurant with the white awnings on the left side of the picture


Taken by us with the camera on the microwave in our "mythical," tiny apartment in Annecy/Veyrier 1998


view from front of mythical apartment


view from the back of the mythical apartment


One of our first Christmas's together, Annecy 1999



Seb started school and we lived in Cluny in Bourgogne. I climbed Solutré a lot. It's a great place to gather your thoughts.



While Seb stayed in school in Cluny I moved back to Annecy and found a job in Albertville. I'm picking him up at the train station in Annecy for our weekend visit. We seem to do this a lot.


At Ensam's Grande Gala 2000. We'd only been married five months.



We moved to Le Loire just after Seb finished school. Chateau d'Angers is one of my favorites.



My sister snapped this photo of Seb and me having an argument on the Champs Elysée. When I asked her why she took it she said "you guys were oblivious to how pretty it was all you were doing was bickering. I wanted to show you what fools your were." (ps the date stamp is wrong on her camera)



Last month on the see-saw in the park--a fitting way to describe a relationship...up, down, up, down