---
title: "Five years"
date: 2011-06-11T01:17:34Z
url: https://blog.lmorchard.com/2011/06/11/five-years/
author: Les Orchard
tags: [wedding, marriage, happiness]
---

# Five years

<a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150188453817452&set=a.479596472451.261680.698502451&type=1" title="One of Matt Callow's old photos from Facebook, also our wedding"><img src="8ad4637e96f3.jpg" style="float:right; width: 50%; margin: 0 0 1em 1em;" /></a>

[I proposed to her][proposed] in front of the [Max &
Ermas][maxandermas] where we'd had our first date. A year or so later,
[we got married][married]. That was five years ago, this past
Thursday.

Over these past five years, my love has put up with a lot from me. To
start with, she let me drag her across the country, away from friends
and family, before we'd even gotten beach sand from our honeymoon out
of the luggage. She let me chase a fantasy out West without even
knowing where we'd live—and she was the one who found us a home while
I got started at my Silicon Valley dream job.

This has been the theme of our years together: Alexandra makes my life
possible. She gives me so much happiness, support, and cares for me
without question—for which I am entirely undeserving.  I would be
useless without her, and rediscover the fact of this on a daily basis.
She enables and encourages me in so many ways, and I can only hope to
return even a fraction of the favor.

Alexandra is my best friend and closest confidant. I love
her as deeply as on our wedding day, and that feeling just grows
stronger every day. As an introvert, I get exahusted after a day
around other people, and need a day alone to recharge. Alexandra is
the only person I've met who can has the opposite effect on me—*we
recharge each other*.

Since we moved back to Michigan, making a home here has
been the happiest time of my life. It's not life as I'd dreamed it
would be—it's been better. And I owe it all to my gorgeous wife,
Alexandra.

[apartment]: http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/06/24/go-west-where
[stopped]: http://decafbad.com/blog/2008/05/14/go-midwest-young-man
[west]: http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/06/24/go-west-young-man
[proposed]: http://decafbad.com/blog/2005/06/17/were-engaged
[married]: http://decafbad.com/blog/2006/06/09/wedding-day-is-today
[maxandermas]: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&q=31205+Orchard+Lake+Rd.,+farmington+hills,+mi&fb=1&gl=us&hnear=0x8824b30706ba377b:0xd782c2371992a3fe,Livonia,+MI&cid=3101127947218864059&z=14

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<div id="comments" class="comments archived-comments">
            <h3>Archived Comments</h3>
            
        <ul class="comments">
            
        <li class="comment" id="comment-224484763">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://groovecoder.com/"><img src="http://disqus.com/api/users/avatars/openid-84477.jpg"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://groovecoder.com/">groovecoder</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-224484763" class="permalink"><time datetime="2011-06-12T22:37:41">2011-06-12T22:37:41</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">congrats man!</div>
            
        </li>
    
        <li class="comment" id="comment-240411531">
            <div class="meta">
                <div class="author">
                    <a class="avatar image" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://kosso.co.uk"><img src="http://disqus.com/api/users/avatars/kosso.jpg"/></a>
                    <a class="avatar name" rel="nofollow" 
                       href="http://kosso.co.uk">kosso</a>
                </div>
                <a href="#comment-240411531" class="permalink"><time datetime="2011-07-02T03:51:00">2011-07-02T03:51:00</time></a>
            </div>
            <div class="content">*sniff*

tis a beautiful thang. 

i miss having a great woman aside me on my life adventures. 

i wish some people were more easily replaceable. but their beauty is, is that they can't be.

oh well. onwards. alone.

for now.</div>
            
        </li>
    
        </ul>
    
        </div>