Yesterday marked our seventh anniversary. It was a beautiful weekend, much like the weekend we had seven years ago, and we cruised to dinner with the top down (in his dad’s Corvette, alas, not ours). We fell in love almost ten years ago while living in two different cities; post-cell phone invention, but pre-cell phone calling plan. We talked for hours on end for the first few nights of the month, and then panicked when we totaled up the long distance land line minutes in our head, and switched to writing. We have stacks upon stacks of these letters, some eight and nine page missives on the oddities of our day, some quick notes on the back of an odd coaster or matchbook or postcard. Many he wrote over lunch, sitting in his car, eating a sandwich and telling me about whatever was on his mind. Many I wrote had little sketches of ideas, things I was working on, places I’d like to go. After we moved into our house we combined these stacks of letters and notes, and the reams of paper printed emails he had saved. Few days in that year and a half went by with an empty mailbox on either side. And the phone bill was still high…
When we married we were knee deep in a house renovation, with little time, little money, and little indoor plumbing. We moved into a house that was not ready, but it was ours. It was like camping, the kind of camping that’s fun for a weekend, but then can wear on you after awhile. But we took up the hammer, the shovel, the sander, the paintbrush, whatever the weapon of choice was at the time, and we attacked the project full force every weeknight, every weekend. We were sweaty and messy and stinky and sore, but it was still so much fun – those long weekends where the two of us worked side by side, project by project. And every Sunday, some time around seven, we’d stop working, throw a pizza in the oven, clear a space on the area rug in the living room, and watch some show together. It was Ed, and then Alias, a little Amazing Race in there somewhere too. It was our ritual, the way we stopped ourselves from working til midnight yet again, and then after the show we’d start up a round of Scrabble or some other board game, and try to find a position on the rug that didn’t cause our aching muscles any more pain. It was the good kind of pain though, the kind you get after a good workout, where you find yourself tired, but elated at what you accomplished. It was a cold winter, and a pretty cold house, but it was a fun winter that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
We have indoor plumbing now (and we use it), and the house is buttoned up tight, and pretty warm in the winter. We have closets to hang our clothes in, and curtains in place of the cardboard at the windows. You might even mistake it for a civilized kind of life, if you can skim over the temporary railings and drywall patches in a few areas. There are always projects to be schemed and projects that drag themselves out, but for the most part, it’s all pretty livable. And I stand around, and I look at it all, and I am still amazed at what my husband can do. Sure, I’ve helped some along the way. But this is his baby. He’s figured and measured and drawn and cut and scribed and attached and re-attached every last piece of this house. And he’s done it all while doing amazing things at work, volunteering at church, going in early (way early) every morning so that he can get off early to pick E up and take her to fabulous parks and libraries each day and then put dinner on the table each night…
I knew he was amazing when I met him, but these seven+ years have deepened that sense of amazement. He’s an amazing husband, and a blow.you.away.amazing kind of dad. It’s been a very lucky seven for me. Here’s to seven times seven times seven more…
Happy anniversary.
K.