Fifteen years ago, on a rainy September day, I didn’t want to leave my house. The Isle of Wight County Fair was going on, but staying home on the couch under a blanket sounded much better to me. Then my sister showed up and somehow convinced me to go with her. The fair parking lot was too wet to use, so we parked at the elementary school and climbed onto a school bus that carried us over to the fairgrounds.

Looking back now, I can’t help but think about all the tiny things that had to happen exactly the way they did for us to end up there at the same time.

Because apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had to be dragged out of the house that night.

When we got to the fair, we met up with my sister’s boyfriend and his cousin—who happened to have convinced Gene to come along with him. Gene and I weren’t exactly strangers. We had known each other all our lives. But this time was different.

I remember everything about walking through the fairgrounds that night. The lights twinkling against the dark September sky. The Ferris wheel going around and around. The smell of popcorn and funnel cakes and barbecue floating through the air. The sound of our boots sloshing through the puddles. The loud laughter of everyone enjoying one of the best nights of the year in a small town.

And I remember seeing Gene.

He was wearing a leather coat. A leather coat that, fifteen years later, is still hanging in our coat closet.

At the end of the night, there was a long line of people waiting to get through the gate and onto the school buses that would take us back to our cars. Gene was standing in front of me. He turned around and asked, “How are your parents doing?” Such a simple and ordinary question. But boy, did I have no clue what that moment would mean for my life.

I didn’t know that the man standing in front of me would become my husband.

I didn’t know how many times I would look into those same eyes over the next fifteen years.

I didn’t know about the bonus kids that I would be a mom to, or the dad you would become to the girls. The pregnant bellies that would become “the boys.” The boats. The holidays. The ballgames and school events. The family dinners and vacations. The laughter and arguments. The really good years and the really hard seasons.

I didn’t know there would be a house that became a home—or that one day that house would have water damage and somehow we would end up spending a summer living aboard a boat.

I didn’t know there would be lazy Sunday mornings, evenings on the flybridge, dock sunsets and late dinners.

I didn’t know how much life we would live together.

All I knew was that you were standing in front of me in a leather coat, asking about my parents.

And somehow, that was the beginning of us.

Fifteen Years Later

We’ve fit a whole lot of life into fifteen years.

We’ve raised babies and watched our “OG” kids become teenagers and now young adults. We’ve built a beautiful blended family, changed plans and made new ones. We’ve walked through seasons that we celebrated and through seasons that looked nothing like we thought they would.

This year especially has reminded me that a life together isn’t made up only of the good parts.

This summer certainly didn’t go according to plan. Water damage turned our house upside down and somehow landed our family living aboard our new-to-us Ocean Yacht. What started as needing somewhere to live became an entire summer on the water.

It was beautiful.

It was also hard.

And maybe that’s one of the things fifteen years has taught me:

Two things can be true at the same time.

You can be incredibly grateful and still be going through something difficult.

You can love someone deeply and still have seasons when loving each other takes more intention.

You can look around and know how blessed you are while also admitting that life isn’t perfect.

The love we had fifteen years ago was exciting and new. It was butterflies and dates and wondering where all of this might go. It was watching out the window waiting for you to come up the driveway. It was taking 4 kids to a football game in the back of your truck on a random Friday night as our first official date. It was walking into your house for the first time not knowing that it would become our home for many years.

The love we have now has lived some life.

There are versions of us from fifteen years ago who probably wouldn’t recognize the people we are today. When you’re a little girl or teenage girl dreaming of her wedding, I think we imagine lasting love as reaching a point where everything finally becomes easy. Fifteen years has taught me something different.

Lasting love isn’t a finish line. It’s continuing to find each other as life changes around you.

It’s remembering that underneath the schedules, responsibilities, kids, jobs and all the noise of adulthood, there are still two people who once stood in line at a county fair waiting for a school bus. And maybe that’s why this anniversary feels a little more meaningful to me this year.

Because after fifteen years, I don’t want to go backward to the people we were when we first met.

I want this version of us.

The one with history.

The one sitting on the back of a boat watching the sun disappear on the creek drinking a beer and a glass of wine.

The one that still has things to learn about each other.

The one that is still becoming.

And sometimes, when I think back to where all of this began, I can still see it so clearly.

The wet fairgrounds.

The twinkling lights.

The ferris wheel.

That leather coat.

And you.

I close my eyes and there you still are.

Fifteen years later, after everything we’ve lived and everything we’ve become, there is one thing I know for sure:

There’s nothing like it in the world.
The way you love me every day.
There’s everyone—and then there’s you.

If I could go back to that rainy September day and tell the girl who didn’t even want to leave her house what was waiting for her at the Isle of Wight County Fair, I’m not sure she would believe me. So maybe I wouldn’t tell her anything.

I’d just tell her to get on the school bus.

Because she’s about to meet the rest of her life.

Happy 15 years to us. ❤️