Happy Anniversary #4

We never put pictures up on the blog of our wedding - so, here it is! Ta-dah! Four years ago we got married and here's the picture to prove it. 

For our anniversary, we went to this beautiful bed and breakfast in Broken Bow, OK. It had a beautiful pool/ hot tub, a cool theatre room, delicious food, and there was a huge picture window in the room that opened up to this incredible scene of Broken Bow Lake - it was perfect. But I can't show you what I'm talking about because the picture I took of the picturesque scene is on my broken phone.

Without fail, every anniversary, I try to talk Evan into some outdoorsy adventure. This time it was canoeing. Easy enough, right? Wrong. Even more wrong was that I brought my phone with me. It's not going to get wet, right? Wrong x2.

Here's the story: The Circle of Life [A Reflective Essay]

I've never been on just a canoe trip. It's always turned from a recreational activity into an epic journey that redefines the meaning of life! This was no exception.

Evan and I suited up, got into position, and the bus driver gave us a shove into the cold water. We just had to make it back to the rental shop, easy enough - right? Analogy: we come into this world with a gentle shove from someone we trust we'll see again. We trust that the final destination will be there (Heaven). And we trust that we'll make it back again - in one piece.

It was only about 100 yards down the river before we hit our first major obstacle - rocks! AND rapids! Fast moving water and huge rocks led us right into: getting trapped! We tried to work together by scooting along but we failed miserably. A guy from the group ahead of us came back to offer his help, but I was too proud to accept it. We kept on scooting... and yelling. But we were still stuck. Another group passed us. They stopped at a little alcove just after the rapids and one of the guy's walked up and offered to help us. So with the boat 100% submerged, we both got out, and stumbled to shore.

Analogy: this is adolescence. Such a turbulent and tumultuous time in our lives. Friends will come and go, we'll get tried, we'll fail a lot, and it will suck sometimes. We'll even deny help from those reaching out with a kind heart, because we definitely know better. And because we can't see the rest of the river and what's just around the bend, our decisions can be short sided and dangerous. But we will have to eventually choose: keep going or stay stuck. So - take the help. Find an alternate route. Don't stay stuck.

After getting to shore, gathering our oars and shoes, being sad about the dead phone in my back pocket, and dumping out the water from our canoe - we got back in and headed out again.

Always get back in the canoe.

With me up front and Evan in the back, we started out. I kept my eye on the path ahead - shouting back orders to Evan. Left! Right! Straight! Whoa!! Rocks - watch out - SPLASH! And we were out of the boat again.

"Don't let go of the boat." "Grab the oars." "What are you doing?" Evan was done with my bossy mouth and was becoming unresponsive. So, I tried to slow it down, took a breather, walked the boat to the shallow edge of the river, and waited. When he was ready, I talked him though dumping the canoe and getting back in without tipping it.

This time he sat up front and I sat in back - hoping to steer us in the right direction. About 200 feet later we hit another rocky spot. We were both squirming and leaning trying to avoid tipping but it was a little too much to the right and SPLASH! Back in the river. Scrambling to gather our stuff again, we limped back to the shallow water's edge.

My experience finally caught up with me and I was able to laugh. Now this is a canoe trip! I was even borderline excited to have a tale to tell. However, Evan was not okay. "You get back in the canoe and I'll just float along next to you," he kept saying.

"That's not how this works," I replied. "You have to get back in the canoe too."

Just after we got everything back together to get going, Evan told me he had to go to the bathroom - like... not just #1. "Can't you hold it?" I asked.

"Nope," he replied. So, I got back into the canoe and help onto a small tree branch while Evan took a little journey through the woods to do his business.

Analogy: welcome to marriage. Two people, struggling to communicate, dumping out left and right, and when you might be at your lowest - "crap" happens. I thought about how easy it would be to just let go of that tiny branch. Or how easy it would be for him to just not come back from his trip in the woods. So I held on, with everything I had, and he came back from the woods.

After he got back, we talked about what it meant to communicate in the canoe, what I expected from him (as I was steering again), and what he expected from me (being the guy up front). As we shoved off from shore again this time, we were almost smiling.

But as we were going, the communication still wasn't solid. So I asked Evan to speak more clearly and (when we came to a fork in the river) to make a quick, clear decision. We slowly got things going and we started to almost work together as a solid team.

Now you can definitely see where I'm going. Life is just like this little adventure. Communication, especially with your spouse, is such a corner stone to a successful relationship. Communication isn't comfortable all the time but you can't navigate life without it.

So guess what happened next? We did it! We actually did it! We were able to stay steady and balanced, we were able to communicate clearly, and we worked together - finally! Because we were staying solid, we actually got to look around for the first time and it was so beautiful. The woods and the river were just amazing. One of our favorite sights were the sunbathing turtles - so cool!

The landing spot came into our view, so we lined the boat up and headed in. Soaked to the bone, freezing, sad, angry, excited, and DONE!

Hopefully we'll end up looking back on this little adventure fondly, but it's just a little bit tender right now. Just like life.

THE END.

I know this was long winded - but I wanted you guys to have a little piece of our anniversary adventure too. The rest of the weekend was great! We ate great food, watched "The Saint" in the theatre, and met some cool people. I wonder what I'll talk Evan into next year...