If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably caught my announcement yesterday about celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary with Cami. And, if you didn’t, well… you are now!
It’s difficult for me to talk about the anniversary without sounding like I’m bragging or too proud. But, darn it… I’m proud! 10 years is a big deal and worth celebrating. I think it’s cool that I’m able to share it with so many people.
Cami and I have actually been together a lot longer than 10 years. The wedding anniversary is just the celebration of a legal document. In fact, we’ve been together for 15 years – almost half our lives. We were high school sweethearts and we married 5 years to the day of our first date. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s cool.
But, of course, I love it when dates and stuff like that line up neatly. I think it’s awesome that Cami and I got married in 2000. Not only because of symbolism of starting a new life together in a new millennium. But it means I can always do some simple math if I ever forget how many years we’ve been together when I’m old and senile. “Lessee… It’s 2056 and we were married in 2000… So that means we’ve been married… 56 YEARS!”
I’m telling you, fellas, it’s a bulletproof plan. Maybe I’m a closeted numerologist, or something. More likely, I suck at math and need all the help I can get!
To celebrate our anniversary last night, Cami and I recruited my parents to babysit Henry and Pearl and we had a very nice meal at a restaurant we love. We had the best time just talking, eating and sharing a bottle of wine. Afterwords, we ran an errand at Target and got a car wash. We joked about it. “What did you do on your 10th wedding anniversary?” “Oh, we got a car wash.”
We we were younger, we used to fantasize about our 10th wedding anniversary. We vaguely planned to go to Hawaii to celebrate. Of course, we had kids and I lost my job last summer. Then our oven crapped out on us last month, so we decided to buy a new oven and count that as our anniversary present for each other.
It sounds unglamorous on paper, but it’s not. It’s representational of how we’ve built a life together, how sometimes plans change and you go with the flow as best you can. How you grow, adjust and learn. If you’re lucky and you’ve picked the right person, hard times are never really hard. And you become a better person because you have someone to share these things with.
Cami makes me a better person and I’m having a blast being married to her.
Happy 10th anniversary, Cami. Here’s to 10 more… and 10 more after that… and 10 more after that.