Five Years Deep

I am the luckiest woman in the world. Everyone says that when they have a great husband, but I don’t care. I will say it with conviction anyway.
June 2nd at 2:30ish pm I had been married to my husband for five(5) whole years. My God that is crazy to my brain. And then I think about the fact that we have been inseparable since we started dating in September/October (yeah, we don’t know exact dates. Whatever, man.) of 2009. Like, WHAT!? I graduated high school in May of 2009. So, he’s nearly a high school sweetheart and is definitely my college sweetheart. Which is crazy. I wasn’t planning to start dating until I was 25, and I turned 26 back in March. So, clearly plans are made to be broken.
Being married to Trey, meeting him, all of it, has easily been the best thing that has ever happened to me. When we met I was at a crossroads. I was either going to end up in a very dark place; sleeping around, hating men, and self loathing. OR, I was going to end up running into the arms of Jesus, not hating men, and learning to love myself. Well, God used Trey to bring me to Him and vice versa. I can’t fathom if I’d taken the other path. I wouldn’t be here, talking to you. Seriously. I wouldn't own this business.

We’ve been through a ton together. Before and after marriage. And some of it was things outside of our marriage affecting us, and some was things inside of our marriage. None of it has been enjoyable. That is for sure. But, we have grown together to be a stronger couple and better people. If you had told me 10 years ago that I would be who I am now, I would have laughed at you. Seriously. And none of it would have happened without Trey in my life.
We have conquered:

• College. No, really. That was hard. We just studied together during fall and spring semester. What fab dates!
• Some really, deeply difficult family ish.
• My stubborn self. Yes, we have both survived that. That is what I mean, because Lord bless it.
• The most terrifying experience EVER. I showed up to his apartment one day for a date and he met me outside with a terrifying look on his face. He was writhing in pain like he’d felt when his appendix burst. We went to the ER, they couldn’t figure it out, they gave us the name of a Dr to go see and sent us home with pain pills. We saw the Dr, he scheduled tests, and for about a week Trey just took pain meds and writhed in pain. I thought my boyfriend might die because all we knew was he was in the worst pain of his life. Then we finally found out it was his gallbladder. And so it was taken out. But y’all, I was a hot mess. I was trying to be strong for him and not cry in front of him because I knew he was terrified, so I needed to be his rock. But eventually I couldn’t anymore and I just curled up in a ball next to him and cried in bed with him.
• Me failing to get into nursing school, twice.
• Drunken fights. He is annoying drunk (to *me*, everyone else thinks he's funny and awesome) and I am just emotional, in all the ways. Bless.
• Who will turn off the light when we both just laid down to sleep.
• My road rage. Yeah. I am less nuts than I once was, but I still scare him often.
• Learning daily what Godly, selfless love looks like in a marriage. Love is hard man! 

On June 2nd, our actual anniversary, we went out to eat and splurged on nice food and drinks, something we never do! We spent quality time together, we went to a nar we love. The usual. But while at dinner we (read: I) decides it'd be fun to do a mini getaway. So the next morning I chose a place close by to go to for the day. I chose Hot Springs which is 3 hours away...we left at about 1. So we stay for a few hours in Hot Springs, and get home by midnight. Because we crazy. But, it was 100% worth it! We loved being spontaneous and just taking in this time in our lives!

Now we are taking on our craziest, by choice, adventure yet. We are smackdab in the middle of completely renovating our kitchen from the ground up. And, for this week, we are taking a break from renovations to visit NYC for our five year anniversary. A trip we have been dying to take for years and our five year anniversary seemed like the perfect time to take the trip, especially with Trey having just graduated his masters program. Then, when we land back in Dallas from NYC, we will be heading straight to Colorado Springs for a whole week. And when we get back, we get to keep working on the kitchen. (follow me on Insta and snapchat @magnoliagraceph to see all the behind the scenes of these things!)
Also, get to is sort of a relative term. At this point it’s more like we have to keep working on the kitchen. Because we don't have a kitchen, haha!

Trey is my person. He is the reason I am working to empower women everyday, he is the reason I have Jesus*, he is the reason I am unafraid to do things like go to the Women’s March, he is the reason I am unafraid to spill my truth to you all the time so that you can know you aren’t alone. He’s my person, and I can’t imagine life without him. But most importantly, I thank God for giving him to me during this season. I hope this season lasts forever. Happy five year anniversary Floyd Leroy Joseph** Aker III
*Technically Jesus is the reason I have Jesus. Cuz God used Trey. But you get the point.
**I once got really mad at Trey and went to use his full real name. Well, I accidentally threw my nephews middle name in there. So now it’s my thing. I call him a non-real name because I am a dork.