Friday, December 20, 2013

"Wait 'til you've been married nine years..."

It's a long standing joke between us.  When we were first married - probably a month into marriage - Ty sent me flowers and someone bitterly said to me, "Wait 'til you've been married nine years.  He won't do THAT anymore."  We joke because she was cranky, clearly unhappy, and hoped to rain on my parade.  It's been our joke since that first month.  "Wait 'til you've been married two years..." "Wait 'til you've been married six years..." and now it's been nine years.

And it's true.

The flowers do come less frequently.  His touch doesn't send a shock down my spine each time.  That gorgeous smile that stretches all the way to the sparkle in his eye, well, sometimes it just doesn't cut it anymore.

My one month married self, my six year married self, wouldn't have believed me. I would've scoffed, "Oh, right.  Wait 'til you've been married nine years" with sarcasm and arrogance because I knew.  I knew our marriage was different.  Our marriage was special.

Well, our marriage is special.  Just not for the reasons I believed it to be then.

Sure I don't get flowers delivered very often, but each spring Ty encourages me to buy new plants for my flower garden.  And he praises me for how the flowers look (and he wipes the dirt off my face after I've been digging in it for hours).  And at the farmers market, he just gives me cash and lets me pick out my own fresh flowers because he knows that's half the fun for me!

Sure, we don't gaze into each other's eyes for long moments anymore.  We don't slow dance in the kitchen much either.  But he catches my eye and winks when our daughter is up to no good or has a dance party with both of us before putting her to bed.

The love letters are few and far between (dare I say, non existent?), but the one line emails telling me I'm his best friend charge me for a week.

Maybe I wear sweat pants a bit more often than I used to, but you should see the way he looks at me when I put a bit of extra eye liner on.  Or wear his favorite perfume.  Yep.  He still wants me.

On our one year anniversary, we were in Vegas.  We spent the night in a plush hotel suite overlooking the strip, spent more on our dinner and drinks that night than we will on Christmas this year.  Nine years later, tonight, I am at home drinking a Costco margarita mix, wearing the same clothes I wore to work, waiting for Ty to get home from a very, very long week.  And I'm ok with that.  He's probably late because he is buying me a card last minute, because he knows I love cards.  And he's probably filling up the car with gas, because I hate to do that.  See, nine years later, he really gets me.

So, wait 'til you've been married nine years.  It certainly isn't the same.  But it's pretty pretty amazing.

(I did put on extra eye liner tonight, by the way.)

December 2004

December 2013

2 comments:

  1. Great post! Congrats you two. You look just as great now as you did then, dare I say even better with that little stinker along for the ride?

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  2. so i'm a little slow in blog reading. sigh.

    love this post. love it the most.

    thank you for being real, i appreciate that more than i can say.

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