Growing up all I ever knew that I wanted was to find that great love and raise a family. After that first fire season together in part I knew what my idea of being married had shifted. Leading up to the day that my husband proposed we had talked about what we wanted our life to look like. For both of us it was about having the other there through it all. We didn’t see our future without each other in it. Looking back I see how young we were but it wasn’t about that for us. We knew what we had was something special and something that would last. It has proven as much true today. After my husband proposed that same year maybe a month or two after he started his first academy. During this academy I had found out that I had a lump in one of my breasts. All I wanted was for him to be there with me when I found out the results but it was not possible. A girlfriend went with me to my mammogram and my mom to my result appointment. I remember the doctor reading my results using only medical terminology and I looked at her like just tell me straight. She must’ve understood the panic in my eye when she finally said “It’s benign.” Little did I know this was one of my first indications of what life was going to be like moving forward. I still did not truly understand. My husband graduated his academy, I was working part time and going to school. In January that following year we would begin our journey of marriage and the fire life.

(his first academy graduation)

Going into our first year of marriage and our third fire season together I remember spending a lot of time doing my own thing. I worked full time and did online classes so that helped kill the time. But it was a truly lonely time. Being married so young we didn’t exactly have a lot of other married couples who we hung out with. So, it was all up to me to find friends who I could relate to and form meaningful conversations. But with my own work and schooling it proved to be hard. Along the way the friends I made that have stuck around are mostly the ones who share the fire life. Those friends have made the biggest difference in my life. So for all the newly weds out there find those friends. Don’t get me wrong though I had some friends who were not involved in the fire life who cared just as much. I learned a lot about myself in those seasons.

For us in the first few years of our marriage there was such thing as seasonal not this year round crazy super seasons. I miss the days when I could count on my husband home during the winter months. We had the time to really reconnect. During the fire season months he never took his vacation or sick days. So getting those months of having him back was like having the best of both worlds. It was like proof to the world I was married and he did exist. I know a lot of you probably feel me on that. Not to mention that off season beard. When we became married I think some of the most valuable things we learned along the way were to put each other first, not let the opinions of others dictate anything, we grew up learning the important things of life together and with every passing year we’ve only grown in learning. So many different things go into what it takes to make our marriage work. If you ask him it’s all about compromise which is true but for me it has been communication. This fire life limits the amount of communication we get but learning to trust is another huge thing. Trust your husbands intentions are true and that he has the best for you even if it doesn’t get communicated in the way you would like. That is where my husband is absolutely right, compromise. Let things go as quickly as you can because time is precious when you’re married to a firefighter. We are now in the seasons of him working year round and those things still hold true.

After the second year of marriage we decided we wanted to try for kids and that in itself brought a whole other aspect of being married in the fire life. Stay tuned for that blog coming in the next week.