5 Years

It is not possible that this occurred 5 years ago.
I must have entered some sort of bizarre time warp. Also, I was an infant bride.

5 years is a long time. As one of my friends pointed out to day, that's like a "we're really going to teach you a lesson" prison sentence. It is longer than a single presidential term. It is long enough for a baby to become a kindergartener. It is long enough to finish a degree program (PhD in the humanities excepted, obviously). It is long enough to look back on -- at all the jokes and the fights and the life-changing events and the joys and sorrows and the whole mixed bag that is five years of sharing pretty much every major moment of your life with someone else -- and ask if it were all worth it and if, knowing what you know now, you would want to go back and do it again.

Yes, I say. I would. In a heartbeat.

To be perfectly honest, there have been moments when I never thought I'd say that. Moments when something -- big or small -- had me on the verge of imagining what it would be like for us not to be together only to realize that I couldn't imagine it. (Except for knowing there would be a horribly messy custody battle over who had to take Little Mac.)

Some people have congratulated me like it really is a huge accomplishment. But I don't feel proud of us for making it, I just feel lucky. I don't know the secret to stayin' married. I don't know that we did something right that other people do wrong. I don't have any good answers except that if you're in the middle of a fight and you can make the other person laugh, that's pretty much a clear win. If you ask nicely for things, you are more likely to get them. Men are a lot of things but they are most definitely not mind readers. And really everyone just wants to feel appreciated. These aren't the answers to making a marriage work, though. I am not sure that there really are answers. I think we just got lucky and I hope and pray that our luck lasts and that marriage never stops being fun.

So here we are today and I can honestly say I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

Except maybe London or Paris (I know, two weeks).

To commemorate the very special day that is today, I got a cold. Hi, it is the middle of summer. What perfect timing for a sinus malfunction. Yesterday I took a Benadryl Cold and Allergy, thinking it would get me through the afternoon without being That Girl With Two Wadded Up Kleenexes Stuffed Up Her Nostrils So Her Hands Are Free to Turn the Pages of Her Book. Instead, I became That Girl Who Regained Consciousness Four Hours Later Thinking Whoa Who Roofied Me?

Today I refuse cold medicine. It is very sexy. Happy Anniversary, honey! I am sniffling, sneezing, and coughing, and I smell like Vicks Vapo Rub and I feel like crap and kinda look like it too but we've been married five years so who cares you have to love me anyway. That's the beauty of a five year anniversary.

Also it is raining so between the crappy weather and my incessant production of snot rockets, our plans for a romantic picnic in Forest Park as we listen to a free outdoor concert... probably not going to happen.

But at least I'm married to someone who makes staying in and sniffling on a Friday night something to look forward to anyway:

He's got a brilliant mind and wicked sense of humor to go with that killer bod.