Eight Years of Change

Back when Veronica was born Brandon and I decided to take big step and sign up for Netflix.  It illustrates how frugal we were that we really had to think about the pros and cons of spending $8.00 a month to have access to countless hours of movies and TV.  And actually at first we just wanted to try out the free month.  I figured Netflix would be a good way to keep the kids and myself occupied while I was trapped under a nursing newborn.

I got sucked into Frasier almost right away and since that was one of the longest running TV shows of all time it was pretty obvious that our Netflix membership would last a lot longer than just one month.

Brandon and I started watching Psych together.  We'd watch an episode (or three) almost every night.  In four months we made it through about 5 Seasons.  We took a break while Brandon was in Korea for 8 1/2 months, and then we picked right back up when he got home.  We'd made to the eighth and final season when he left for WOCS in March.  When he got home we finished up the last three episodes of the show.

Overall we loved the show.  We had a lot of fun watching Shawn and Gus do crazy things to convince people that Shawn was a crime solving psychic.  And the supporting cast provided a lot of laughs too.  The show was a great way to forget about all our stress and imagine what life would be like if we could be 30 year olds without any responsibilities.    

BUT . . .

It also got kind of old.  Honestly by the time Brandon had to go to Korea we were ready for a break from Shawn's antics.  We'd seen enough of him goofing off and we wanted to see some growth.  Fortunately, when we started watching the show again, it seemed like Shawn was turning a corner.  His relationship with Juliet started going somewhere at least.

Relationships move slow in most TV shows (Parks and Recreation being a nice exception to that rule) and so even up to the series finale we still weren't sure if Shawn would ever propose to Juliet.  Other characters made life decisions - career changes, home buying and selling, marriage - but Shawn and Gus seemed like they would never change.

Maybe that was the point of the show, but still it would have been nice to see some growth.  It didn't help that the last season of the show was full of terrible episodes.  I would have preferred some much better character arc resolutions for everyone.

Overall it was a fun show full of laughs and highly entertaining.  I recommend it, I really do.

BUT I wish Shawn could have shown more growth over the course of the show.  The show ran for 8 seasons.  That's a long time.  You know what else has lasted that long?  My marriage.

Brandon and I celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary today.  And you can bet we've changed a lot during those 8 years.

This is us 8 years ago.  I was 22 and Brandon was 24.  We were both still in college. We drove a crappy Pontiac Grand Am.  We lived in a tiny one bedroom apartment that only had a heater in the living room. We probably had less than $500 in our bank account.  Brandon had a heck of a lot of student loan debt and wasn't even close to graduating.   We knew that we loved each other and that we wanted to start life as a married couple.  We knew that we could face any future as long as we were together.  

And here we are today. 

8 years, 4 kids, 6 addresses, at least 7 road trips, 2 college graduations, 2 military graduations, and 1 deployment later.  

We live in a beautiful four bedroom house, we have two reliable cars, our children are happy and healthy, we are happy and healthy, Brandon is about to start flight school - and get paid to do it, we have more than $500 in our bank account, and we are slowly making progress on paying off that student loan debt.  Things are looking really good for us.

And we still know that we love each other and that we wanted to live as a married couple.  We know that we can face any future as long as we are together.  

Today we started talking about things will change in the next 8 years. By then Charlotte and Lydia will be turning 13 so we'll be starting the whole parents of teenagers years.  Brandon's time in the Army will be coming to an end. We should be out of debt, and hopefully we'll have a pretty sizable nest egg saved up.  And those are only the things we can guess at.  Who knows what curve balls life will throw at us.

So as fun as it was to watch Psych and imagine what life could be like if we were goof-ball 30 year olds I prefer my real life where I learn and grow with my husband.  Wouldn't you?