Today Ben and I turn 20. We have officially reached the stage where I can confidently say - yes you can come to us for marriage advice. We are pro level. I’m looking at these old photos of us- actual children and I’ve thought about what I would say to them now as I look back… Ben and Courtney - Congrats on your wedding day! Four months? Pretty bold. It will kick you in the ass a bit but all good you will make it through. What does 20 years look like? It will be millions of things that somehow overlap, intertwine and at times don’t make sense. It will be perfect and it will be awful- but the story between those two things is where the magic of you guys exists. So what’s your magic? Fighting over whether you could afford a cucumber. Moving states, jobs, and pivots you didn’t see coming. Planting roots and pacing the floor waiting for them to grow. Three pregnancies, two perfect kids. Dogs. So many dogs. So many losses. Losing yourselves and finding each other. Losing people and realizing you were each others all along. It will be Ben disappearing into a computer for what feels like years, teaching himself everything from nothing then watching him build and build again. It will be me stumbling through and finally realizing I actually am all things my past told me I wasn’t. It will be healing. Slowly. And never completely. You are not the same two people anymore… like at all. And somehow that’s been the best part. You allowed each other to grow and shift and evolve. You went in separate directions sometimes then found your way back. You have loved a million different versions of each other. Like mostly. There was some contempt in there but that’s something for another day. The beauty of being broken is that there is healing if you allow it the time. The teenagers everyone warned you about? They are your favorite people. They make you better because they are for SURE better versions of you. Watching them become who they are will be the greatest thing you ever do together. Letting them go together will be the most important. It will be perfect and it will be awful. You will let it be both. Continued in comments….