The view in this photograph doesn’t exist anymore.
And I suppose anniversaries can be like that, too.
This photo is standing close to the arch at Epworth-By-The-Sea at St. Simons Island. We are standing facing the arch, with Virginia facing those beautiful Live Oaks in the background.
Standing in this very spot now, there are condos in the background now in 2026 where there was only woods in 2005.
Not all progress is positive. Even if I am a curmudgeon about progress in general, especially when it mostly only benefits rich people.
Today was not an easy day. I have been really sick (thus the COVID test picture and post that went viral on Facebook, from the other post– last check there were over 309,800 views on that post).
Today was our 21st anniversary, and I always get extremely anxious on special days.
And, Jared had taken the day off (and tomorrow) to be with me all day, and Jared got called into work for an emergency. Which I didn’t mind later in the moment.
But as typical for special occasions, there were fights last night.
I got scared because Aquaguard came to inspect our crawlspace encapsulation, and this kid that graduated with Porter, who probably hasn’t even been on the job very long at all, tried to tell just that there are problems with our foundation.
And, there very well might be problems. But probably not to the extent that the kid tried to scare us into buying a solution into. We will hire an independent structural engineer company when we have funds to do so. There are no external signs that there are problems, and with our house being 32 years old, these “issues” may have gone unnoticed for years upon years.
And that sent me into a spiral of feeling like crap about being unemployable, and I posted a not very wise Facebook post that I have since archived, after Jared and I had been fighting for hours, about 11 PM last night.
And I woke Jared up after crying myself to sleep at about 2:30 AM, and Jared hadn’t been asleep very long himself at that point.
So, we were not set up for a very good day together.
The day was not a loss; we had a lovely time at Gallery Row for lunch.
But there was more fighting later in the day.
I have high expectations for special days like anniversaries, and I’m hoping to tone them down for future events so as to not cause problems like happened today.
But now that the day is over, I can calm down, and we can go back to real life.
It is Easter weekend, and I am still really not feeling well– I finally called a Telehealth urgent care on Tuesday and got an antibiotic for the secondary sinus infection I have developed. But I’m still far from 100%.
We may not make it to Good Friday service at church like planned, and I’m hoping for a better next couple of days than the past couple of days.
I suppose having had 21 anniversaries at this point, there was bound to be a hard day mixed in somewhere.
Neither of us even made the joke that our marriage is old enough to drink today.
