The season of summer

So my good friend Whit gave me a book for our anniversary. It is called the four seasons of marriage. Steve and I took the surveys inside (I took my by myself, and then I asked him the questions out loud) and we answered nearly all the questions the same. We were pretty clearly in the Summer category. Although we are not anywhere perfect, and we still have a lot of growing to do as a couple, it was pretty nice to be in this season. It is the season of being satisfied, and comfortable. I wondered at first if we could describe some of our life as "uncertain" or "unsatisfied", but then I realized that that would be describing some aspects of our life, and not of our relationship with each other. Of course, at any time you can change seasons, and as steve said, it is pretty easy to feel good about your relationship right when you get back from an awesome weekend retreat like we just had.
The cool thing is that we are pretty comfortable right now, and are pretty secure in knowing we love each other, and we have figured out some of our "triggers" which means that when it comes along we realize now it is just as much circumstances, than it is "maybe he doesn't love me anymore" or something silly like that. We just realize these moments are a part of life. And as the book says, you have to realize how you got to summer, and make sure you keep planting the spring seeds, and water it, and nurturing it, so that you can stay in summer for as long as possible.
Summer to me is steve and I sitting on the porch each reading our own book, and sometimes talking when we feel like it, and being quiet when we feel like it, and being totally content.
I like it. I hope we can keep it. I know that circumstances change (like having a baby) and we will have more chaos in our lives, and that could pull us out of summer like it never was. But I am really glad that at least we didn't move right from chaos to more chaos....that somewhere in our hearts despite whatever comes our way in the future, we knew that it could be THIS good, and somewhere in the depths of everything, THIS GOOD can be found again.