Every summer, Mike’s parents gather everyone up for family pictures. We all meet at some beautiful backdrop, and the poor photographer tries to get a decent picture of all 12 of us.
I always look like the hungover version of Cruella DeVille in these pictures. It’s the curse of all of us who are truly unphotogenic. A picture where I don’t look like I’ve been drinking martinis all morning rarely happens.
Except this time. This time the photographer got really good pictures, even this one of Mike and me. After 16 years together, we have a picture where we don’t look like we’re suffering from Swine Flu.
Even though we look happy in this picture, our smiles don’t tell everything. This picture doesn’t capture the important wisdom we’ve learned over our 16 years together. Our smiles don’t tell the deep contentment we’re gradually making a part of our marriage.
Every day, we both learn a little more about the importance of patience with each other, patience with with our dreams, and patience with God.
This year we’re learning anything worth doing has 5 million steps instead of the 5 it seemed to have. We’re learning dreams that ripen fast also spoil fast. We’re learning day-to-day consistency over bright flashes of energy.
The camera also doesn’t tell what we’ve learned about deep breaths. We’ve had seasons when we’re both so strung out on work deadlines and kid fears, we can barely take a deep breath—let alone a deep breath together.
But we’re learning the deep breaths are the important part of life. Deep breaths bring light and air into the stuffy places.
A deep breath together, with our arms around each other, in the kitchen with the kids watching, teaches all this wisdom to ourselves and to our family. We have to do these a lot, these deep breaths in the kitchen, to keep relearning how important they are.
There are so many deep breath stories that couldn’t fit into this picture. The camera can’t show a year of cranky moods the other one forgave. The picture can’t show how we’ve both forgiven hurt feelings. The laughing, crying (me), and accomplished goals aren’t in this photo of us. Those stories can’t be photographed.
Actually, maybe these stories are in this picture. Maybe our love story is in the wrinkles gathering around my eyes and the grey patches in Mike’s hair. Perhaps it’s the flaws in our faces that tell the beautiful truth: even as we age, especially as we age, we learn life is about love. Life is about learning to truly love another person.
Life is, really, all about patience and deep breaths.
Coincidentally, these are two important parts of a good picture. Maybe we just needed to be patient–for sixteen years–to get a good picture.
Or maybe, it’s that we’ve both finally learned how to take a deep breath.
