Thursday, December 09, 2010

One Year and Counting

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary last week. I’m afraid I’m going to have to sound clichéd and say that I can’t believe it’s already been a year, it only felt like yesterday! But that’s really how it feels. This whole 10 week holiday is to celebrate one year of being married, and ending the year with a bang, so there wasn’t much more we could do to make the day special.

Friends and family wished us – it felt nice that so many people remembered and cared to call and wish. We went out for lunch to this nice place with great food, and then went for to a spa for some pampering, and then sat at The Coffee Bean and watched the rain. We later went out for dinner to this lovely Mediterranean restaurant perched on top of a hill with fantastic views.

But it was the trip we made the weekend after that was truly special. We went to this magical little island called Siquijor. It was a painful journey getting there – what was supposed to be a 5 hour journey ended up being 8 hours. But we ended up at this lovely little seaside resort with clean spacious rooms, a cheerful staff, and built right next to a little cove which made us feel like the whole beach was all our own, with not a person around as far as the eye could see.

In Siquijor, we watched the most gorgeous sunset ever, and then drove around the island, looking for fireflies in the dark. Dinner was right on the beach – with the waves lapping inches away from our feet. As we drove back to the resort after dinner, our jaws dropped at the stars in the sky; I don’t ever remember seeing so many. So we just sat by the beach again to stare at the sky, and in one hour, we counted nine shooting stars!

The next day, we went scuba diving, and it was F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C. We then drove around the island, had ice-cream for lunch, went to a cute little waterfall where we were the only two people (again), and then idly drove through gorgeous hills and forests. We went hunting for the local black magic practitioners but it was getting late and we also wanted to get back to the resort in time for sunset. Another gorgeous sunset by the beach, followed by a dinner buffet and a cultural show, and capped off the night with hot chocolate while watching the stars in the sky, and listening to the waves.

It was perfect. (This is where I pretend to forget about the tortuous journey back home the next day!).

So it’s been a year of being married, and I never thought I’d say this, but married life has been wonderful. Before I got married, I always thought to myself that married life wasn’t going to change much between Nike and me, given how long we’d been seeing each other by then. To be honest, I had agreed to getting married because I thought it was something that I had to do, not necessarily because it was something I wanted to do at that point – I was happy enough being in a long term, committed relationship, and didn’t particularly want to get married.

But what I didn’t realise is that maybe the relationship needed to go forward, and maybe marriage was the next step. The high that came from the whole wedding – it was a little bit like falling in love all over again, and finding out that you’re grinning for no good reason. We are both now so much more affectionate and caring and considerate towards each other. There is no logical reason why marriage should do this to us, but it has, and I’ve been a very happy girl the last one year.

Of course it’s not all easy. We fight about imaginary finances. We fight when Nike tries to control my bad eating habits (because to me that’s naturally going to lead to his controlling my whole life!). We fight when he criticises me. We fight when he thinks I’m being selfish (though of course I’m not being selfish). We fight when either one of us doesn't listen to the other. But these have been small fights – fights which have gotten resolved with a few hours, and with us never going to sleep angry with each other – and I can deal with them. 

So for this awesome year of being married, for this wonderful person, for having some more people to call family, for all the travel, and for so much more, I’m happy and I’m grateful. Now we can only hope and pray that the years to come will continue to see us both as happy, and that we have what it takes to make a successful, strong and happy marriage.

But for now, it’s off to another island for the weekend!

5 comments:

smartassbride said...

Awww. whattay sweet post! the way you spent your time is like something out of a nice romantic movie :-)

May this continue for many more years to come!

Ramya said...

@Abi: Thanks for the wishes! :-)

I know it sounds all Yash Raj-y, but reality included:
- falling off the bike and bruising ourselves,
- sitting on a stool for a 6hr bus journey surrounded by puking school children
- almost throwing up on a very rough ferry ride
- going without lunch for two days in a row because there was no eatable food
and other such assorted joys.

YET, its really the good parts that mostly I seem to remember, so it was a great trip after all! ;-)

Amu said...

Amen!! This is one of the sweetest posts I have ever read :-)

Ramya said...

@Amu: Aww...thanks! :-)

Apoorv Gawde said...

Super! Wishing you both loads of adventures ahead!

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