Someday

When my hubby and I were dating, we used to talk about all the things we were going to do someday.  When you are young and in love, all the promises of the world are at your fingertips.  Someday we were going to grow up, and have jobs we loved, and get married, and have a nice house, and have a few kids, and watch them grow up, and take awesome vacations, and...

You know what was never in our plans for someday?  Reality. 

I'm pretty sure we never said, "Someday we're going to have two imperfect children.  Someday we'll wonder what's wrong with them and is it really supposed to be this hard?  Someday we'll struggle to come to terms with their diagnoses.  Someday we'll have to teach them things that other kids just figure out on their own.  Someday we'll have to think about the best schools to meet their needs and fight for the services they're going to need to succeed in those schools.  Someday we'll be on a first-name basis with psychiatrists and neurologists and social workers.  Someday we'll deal with meltdowns and depression and anxiety and motor delays."

Nope, I don't think we ever planned for that.

You know what else never entered that conversation?  We never said, "Someday we'll have to use our savings for therapists and doctors.  Someday those vacation plans will fly out the window along with any extra money we might manage to find.  Someday we'll struggle to pay the bills and put food on the table and still keep the kids in therapy and in the kind of social groups that will help them mature and grow."

And I know we never said, "Someday we'll cry because our plans for the future all have question marks after them.  Someday we'll worry endlessly about our kids because of bullies, and teachers who don't understand, and strangers who stare and judge us and them.  Someday we'll wonder if it will ever get better, and someday we'll celebrate every little tiny milestone because of all that went into reaching them."

And in all of our plans for Someday, we never, ever said, "Someday we'll struggle to connect with each other because we'll be exhausted from meeting the needs of our kids day after day after day.  Someday we'll try really hard just to get a date night once a month, because we'll be desperate to reconnect with each other."

Yeah, isn't it funny how our plans rarely end up just like we thought they would? 

But do you know what else we said?  "Someday we'll spend all our free time together and not have to go weeks without seeing each other.  (Ours was a long-distance romance while I finished school.)  And someday we'll be able to just sit and relax with each other, secure in our unending love and commitment to each other.  Someday we'll look back on these days and how in love we are, and wonder how it's possible to love each other more than we do now." 

I guess some things DO turn out the way we plan.

Happy Anniversary to my love, my friend, and my partner in this crazy, unplanned life.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord.  "Plans to prosper you, and not to harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future."  Jeremiah 29:11