10 years & 1000 moments

St. Luica, August 2003!

Lately HJ has been really into talking about weddings and getting married. At the end of the school year, she "wrote" (i.e. dictated to her 5th grade buddy) a story about rainbow kitties and weddings. And apparently she is marrying her friend Mason from school. They are planning to move to Tennessee and live in an apartment so Mason can push the button in the elevator every time. Hmmm, Mason, not sure how that's going to work out with HJ...

So when I told her this weekend that 10 years ago, Daddy & Mommy had their wedding and got married, she pretty much just gave me a look that said, Mommy, I have no idea what you're talking about, but if that means you and Daddy are going out to dinner and not taking me and Lila with you I don't like it.

Thanks to my wonderful sister, aka best aunt in the whole wide world, we did manage to go out for a fancy dinner and a movie (our first since before Lila was born, maybe since HJ came home??), and it was lovely of course, but not exactly what we had planned 10 years ago. When we went on our honeymoon to St. Lucia 10 years ago, we had vowed to come back for our 10 year anniversary. Fast forward 10 years, and we found ourselves celebrating in Northbrook, Illinois, a bit closer to home than St. Lucia.

Not sure what we were thinking back then when we first got married. Did we think that we would have kids? I'm sure we did. But did we realize what that would mean in terms of things like traveling to a faraway tropical island or even going out to dinner and a movie once in a while? I doubt it. We were young, naive, and pretty much 100% clueless!

One thing that changed our plans was thinking that we would have kids right away. I mean, maybe we thought about waiting a couple years to enjoy married life as a couple, but if things had gone "according to plan" we would probably have an 8 year old and a 6 year old who would happily be independent enough to stay with their grandparents for a week. It's funny how much things don't go "according to plan."

Although Sol and I had always thought about adopting in the back of our minds, for me, it had always been somewhat of a distant possibility. I had grown up visiting my grandparents and aunt and uncle's orphanages in Korea, so the idea was never completely foreign to me, but I had no idea how long and agonizing the entire process would be. It seems so long ago now, but in those first few years when things were not going according to plan at all, I remember wondering if I would ever become a mother. It seemed to be the only thing I wanted and the one thing I couldn't control. And then when HJ arrived in our lives, there was hardly a moment to reflect, to really understand that this was everything I had been waiting for. After that, it was wondering how and when HJ would have a sibling, and then Lila was born. And now, here we are, 10 years later, our two beautiful girls, and I can hardly remember what life was like before.

While we were eating dinner on our anniversary, I told Sol that if there was one thing I felt at that moment, it was lucky. Maybe lucky is not the right word. Fortunate? Blessed? Thankful? In any case, happy to be where I was at that very moment. Because even if I could never have imagined how things would turn out 10 years ago, all the moments, both good and bad, and as Sol put it, more than our fair share of drama over the years, there is nothing, absolutely nothing I would ever trade for being right where we are today.

Happy 10 year anniversary, Sol. I love you more now than I did the day we got married. Maybe we can go back to St. Luica for our 20 year anniversary :)