A Year And A Day

This Tuesday will be our first anniversary.  We laugh and say that we can't believe we've made it through a year without medication.  We joke and say that we still have a few days left to kill each other.  We smile and tease each other about how we met, and whose "fault" it is.


After my divorce from my first husband, I swore that I would never do that again.  Commitment was too much for me, and too hard to get out of, once it's done.  When we met, we were just going to be friends.  Once we got over that idea, we were just going to be a fling.  He was going to be deploying to Iraq, and I sure wasn't going to be tied down to someone that I couldn't see for a year, when we had only been together for a few months.  By the time he actually left, I was telling myself that he wanted me just so that he could say he had someone waiting for him to come home, and I was with him just so that I could decline any offers, since I was already involved with someone.  A year after that, I moved up near Ft. Drum to live with him.  Actually, I moved up here to prepare a home for him to come home to.  But, it was still just a temporary thing, right?  Right.  Then he got in that car accident, and the Army was going to be looking at putting him out.  It was suggested that we might get married so that we would all be covered by his health benefits and such, even after he was out.  We both sort of hemmed and hawed for a while, and finally decided to do it.  Sure, we can do that.  It's practical and beneficial, for financial reasons.  Certainly not because we were really in...in...well, you know the word.  It was the smart choice, not the silly, foolish emotionally based one.  Humph.

So, on June 21, 2010, the Summer Solstice, we were married.  It was a casual thing.  And by casual, I mean that the retired judge who performed the ceremony for us was wearing a mumu and slippers.  Ken wore jeans.  My best friend was my witness, and he wore jeans, as well.  Ken's witness, the father of our future Guide Daughter, wore a stunningly stylish white suit.  His wife, Nadia, was just a month and a half away from having the baby, and she was in charge of the pictures.  My sons were there, apparently as the peanut gallery and comedy relief.  It was hilarious and fun...and perfect.

And now it's been a year.  Not an easy year, I promise you that.  We've already been through just about the worst we could possibly go through.  We've had the quick bursts of not-so-happiness, like my breast cancer scare, his mother's stroke.  We've had the longer, more drawn out issues.  Don't even get me started on his brother and that house in Texas.  Ugh!  That one nearly cost us the marriage a few times.  We've had fights.  I've handed him my ring a few times.  He even left the house to go sleep somewhere else, once.

I wouldn't trade a moment of it.  Not for all the world.  Somewhere along the lines, I discovered that I do, in fact...  Well, I...I...  *le sigh*  Okay, you win.  I love him...and Oreo Double Stuff (You'll have to ask him, if you want an explaination for that one.  ;) ).  He has given me the freedom to fly, but he hasn't been afraid to shoot me back down to the ground when I got too close to the Sun.  He has made me angry beyond words, but he has taught me not to hold a grudge for days at a time.  He makes me laugh, sometimes just because he's laughing at something.

You know, when we first decided to sign our lives away to each other, we wanted a Handfasting.  Of course, that just wasn't possible.  We couldn't find anyone in the area who could do that for us, and still have it be a legal marriage.  So, we had the simple, outdoor, still-sorta-Christian wedding.  On Tuesday, we will have been married for one year.  I think, on Wednesday, I'll pledge to him another year and a day.

Until we meet again,
Wysp