Exploration
“Love is the great adventure, the endless exploration of two souls choosing each other over and over.” — Unknown
Tomorrow is my 18th wedding anniversary.
Eighteen is an interesting number. That’s when we consider a person grown up.
There’s a sense of arrival, but also of just beginning.
That’s how this anniversary feels. Like our marriage has come of age and the best is yet to come.
And, randomly, today I was certified to scuba dive after a couple weekends of training.
There is an interesting connection between these seemingly disparate ideas.
Learning to explore a new world beneath the surface reminds me of the depth still waiting to be discovered in our relationship.
While she’ll never join me beneath the waves, Kellie is my partner in the endless exploration of what love means.
Buddies
The most obvious connection between diving and marriage is the critical importance of your partner — your “buddy.”
They’re with you every step of the way. A source of comfort and safety in a strange, unpredictable world.
You entrust them with your life. You learn to communicate without words. And everything is richer when you experience it together.
Kellie and I have navigated some wildly turbulent conditions in 18 years.
Some we created ourselves, others were forced upon us. Through it all, we’ve helped each other find our way.
When we’ve felt like we were drowning, we found strength in each other to manage.
Even when we get lost, we know we aren’t alone.
There are no conditions in which we can’t count on each other.
Buoyancy
Developing your ability to float calmly and in control in the water takes practice. The key is your breath.
It demands self-awareness and presence. Regulating emotions. Staying calm. Making tiny internal adjustments that dramatically affect the experience.
I picked this up quickly in diving, but it’s taken me 18 years to calibrate my buoyancy in marriage.
Emotional currents move violently and unexpectedly while raising three kids, navigating careers, and just figuring out life.
I’ve learned the key to relational buoyancy is not resisting the current, but observing my own reactions and choosing my response to it.
For so long, I pushed against it, trying to force the pattern to change.
But the truth is always simple: nothing changes until you do.
Looking back, so many of my strongest reactions weren’t my adult self at all — they were the younger versions of me surfacing.
In marriage, it’s often emotional energy emanating deep from within our subconscious minds that cause the most trouble.
Once I learned this, and gained more understanding of my own deep subconscious patterns, I could start to respond with empathy instead of defensiveness.
Buoyancy isn’t about controlling the water — it’s about calming what’s inside of you so you can rise and meet the moment.
Endless Exploration
Over the past two days of diving, I’ve experienced reality on a new level.
Wide-eyed underwater, amazed at the ease of breathing, everything feels new and possible.
That’s the energy I want to bring into my marriage after 18 years.
At this age and stage, its so easy to take it all for granted. To stop working at it and coast on what we’ve accomplished.
And we do sometimes. Inevitably, we drift into trouble.
So we each do our own inner exploration to help us show up more fully for each other.
Too many people our age talk as if the best days are behind them.
That’s only true if you stop wanting to explore.
Marriage doesn’t shrink with time, it expands.
At 18 years, we’re just coming of age, just earning the right to explore uncharted waters together.
And that’s what excites me most: the deeper we go, the more there is to discover.
#CoachKris
The infant couple is made official 9/22/07. 18 years later, they are starting to get the hang of things!
SCUBA Certification been on the bucket list for a long time!
