Worth the Eight

Whenever I want to feel really old, I just remember how long I've been married.

Eight years today. Eight whole years. One-fourth of my life.

And while most people say things like "eight years ago today, we stood in front of our family and friends, looked soulfully into one another's eyes and promised. . . yada, yada, yada," I am not most people and sap makes me squirm. So instead, I give you eight highlights from these eight crazy years.

1) The big plaid couch. This couch was a hand-me-down from my parents. It weighed about four tons. It was gargantuan. The couch was with us for our first two apartments in Denver but we got rid of it before move #2 there. The getting rid of it involved shoving it down the hallway (it barely fit) and into the stairwell outside. Then we dropped it from the second story, almost hitting an errant passerby in the process. This would have resulted in a seriously injured passerby. Not to mention that it probably wouldn't have been all that fun to spend our first anniversary incarcerated. (Nothing says "happy anniversary" like an involuntary manslaughter conviction.) We left it by the curb down the street for what we thought was large item pickup day but it stayed there for a week or so before it disappeared. We snickered every time we passed and saw that it was still there. Oh, the joys of apartment living . . .

2) The world's loudest fire alarm. In apartment #3, a truck hit the sprinkler system in the parking garage in the middle of the night and set off our fire alarm, which could only be described as deafening. My manly husband sat up in bed, screamed like a girl (and I don't use that phrase often, as I think it's kind of obnoxious) and pawed at me for a good ten seconds, until we realized what was going on. Then we laughed hysterically for about half an hour until we went back to sleep, the ensuing silence punctuated by our intermittent laughter as we relived it again and again. I still picture what we must've looked like and crack up.

3) Cantaloupe in the shower. We bought a cantaloupe at the store that didn't make it in with the rest of the groceries. It stayed there for a few days and became a little bit of a joke. Then someone (?) kept putting it in odd places where I'd find it unexpectedly, like our bed or the shower. It kind of sounds silly, writing about it, but I swear it was funny.

4) Eight years, three major moves, five smaller (within the same city) moves, five states, buying three houses and selling two. I'm tired just thinking about it, all the packing, unpacking and chaos. I'd be perfectly happy if we never moved again.

5) Moving here. We love our neighborhood. We never want to leave. It's the perfect place to raise a family and it's about as idyllic as it gets neighborhood-wise.

6) The secret language of our marriage: "Tollbooth!," "Do you know who you're talking to?," and a million other things that no one else would get. Or find even remotely amusing.

7) April 2nd, 2007, 3:24 pm.

8) March 28, 2010, 10:57 pm. These last two are my favorites, even if #7 has driven me to the brink of insanity here lately. They are the product of eight years full of talking, fighting, compromising, ignoring, embracing, celebrating, laughing, shouting, pouting, loving, hating, rearranging, ribbing, needling, pinching, poking, prodding, discussing, remembering, forgetting, scheming, planning, dreaming, seeing, believing, and above all, staying right where we are. To my husband of 80% of a decade: thank you for staying, for being the one person who has always just gotten me, in every sense of that word. Happy anniversary.