Four Short Years

Wow, a post a month is not exactly a great record. I will pretend that there are readers who object to the long wait, and apologize. Sorry, ya'll.

This past Thursday was our fourth wedding anniversary. We celebrated by eating dinner later than usual (8:00 instead of 6:00), and in Jim's case, by waiting until 10:00 to fall asleep on the couch. Spicy! On the one hand, four years seems like a long time, that is, it's hard to believe that we've been married that long already. On the other hand, our lives have changed so drastically in those four years that it's difficult to see how all those changes could have fit into that span of time.

I remember as a teenager, or maybe a young twenty-something, asking my mom how she knew that my dad was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. I was hoping for a peek into my mom's fairly secretive emotional life, and thrilled a bit to the anticipation of some semblance of girl talk between her and me- a rarity. I can't remember the exact words she used, but her answer was along the lines of "You know, we were just both at the age where people get married, so it seemed like the right thing to do." Was she just getting over a recent spat with my dad? Or did she really just get married because she was the right age, and so was he, and there they were, the right age, together?

The main piece of advice about marriage that my parents passed along to me (besides the one where my mom repeatedly harangued me not to get married before I finished my degree and found a good job) was to "marry a friend." Which, when you're a teenager, sounds ridiculous and even a little creepy. It was creepier still when my dad would explain that he and my mom didn't do that (but instead, just got married because she was so good looking, and he, the right age?), and this made it a lot harder when they ran into problems and had to work them out without a strong basis of friendship to stand on. I don't know how old you have to get before it's comfortable hearing your parents discuss problems in their marriage. They had their forty-fifth wedding anniversary (I think that's the right number) this year, so, all's well that endures well. The friendship must have seeped in along the way.

As with many pieces of parental advice that seemed at the time really not to apply to me, of course my parents were right about this. Having a good friend, one that you can really count on, by your side every day is absolutely the best thing about being married. It is a super sweet bonus if that friend is smart, kind, funny (goofy), strong, brave, a great father, a good singer, a good cook (if memory serves, ha ha, just kidding, honey), and last but not least, goooood looking. Reader, he is the bomb.

I thought it would be a palate cleanser to write about something other than my super cute and adorable girls and their winning ways and amazing vocabularies. And I could have gone the sitcom route and described all the things that drive us crazy about each other (I mean, not in a good way), or the absurd argument we had the other day about whether the giant powdered wigs that guys used to wear can be compared to something like modern day jeans in a historical big picture analysis of superficially inscrutable "fashion" (Me: they cannot! Him: they can!). Instead, I up the syrup ante with a little anniversary tribute to my man, and the institution that binds us.


Now married 4 years, in this picture, right around 4 minutes...