Nine Years

Anniversaries are always a chance for some nostalgia, some sentiment, some reflection on what we've been through and how far we've grown together.

Perhaps the greatest advantage (and disadvantage) of marrying young and not really knowing anything is that you don't really know, well, anything. You don't have a great sense of the scale of time passing and how the most mundane life circumstances will shake out all the deepest parts of your depravity - all over each other.
I suppose, at first, I thought it would be the tragedies and suffering that would bring out the worst. (OK, there was that screaming I did when my grandmother died and we were lost in the dark on Long Island.) And so, I was surprised to discover, as I reflected this morning, that our marriage has struggled most in the times devoid of some trial. So, lucky for us, our nine years of marriage have been fraught with suffering. And that has made all the difference.

I made a list of all the trials and sufferings we've been through - and it is too long and too depressing. I lost count at 8 - when I was attempting to recall the people we loved who have died since our wedding. Friends suffering, babies sick, pregnancy impossibilities, marriages falling apart. It has not been possible to forget for more than a few days that we are sustained by the grace of God alone.

Why my husband is better than before:
1. All I have to do is agree on a family bike ride and he is elated.
2. He accepts that I don't like making him lunches either.
3. He finds the new good stuff (movies, TV shows, music) and his taste is only getting better. (Who made me the judge? I don't know - this is where love is blind)
4. If I have all the ingredients for dinner - he actually enjoys coming home and putting it together.
5. He is very funny.
6. He knows when I am hungry, tired, or justifiably angry - and can talk me back from the ledge.
7. Encourages me to take time to myself - shooing me out the door some evenings (kids still awake! Kitchen messy!)
8. The kids can't go to bed without him and the little detailed rituals he takes them through. The song, the handshake, the secret shapes.
9. He loves chess but doesn't make me play or get annoyed that I refuse to play.
10. Maybe this goes with #3 - but he is constantly pushing me to expand my tastes. Listening to new things, watching new things, going to new places, making new friends, reading new things.
11. He lets me have the NY Times magazine and Sunday Styles both to myself on Sundays.
(He claims to prefer the Book Review... but how could he possibly over Modern Love?! Impossible!)