So today is mine and John’s anniversary. Two years ago today, we were married in a beautiful church in New Orleans with everyone we love around us. So much has happened since then.<\/p>\n
We are phasing out of our newlywed years and getting down to the nitty gritty of what this married life is all about. Yes, we are best friends. Yes, we know one another better than anyone ever has or ever will. Yes, we make sacrifices for one another. But those of you who are married know the deeper issues; those days when you want to kill one another followed by a love stronger than you ever thought possible for someone other than your children; those days when you realize you are actually a better quality of person because of your other and vice versa; those days when you can look at each other and realize that the two of you have built an entire world consisting of children and pets and careers and homes and experiences that are strong and exists solely because of your love. Marriage is being able to throw a container of cottage cheese at your husband, thus starting a cottage cheese war, while you are both sobbing incoherent mutterings about everything being the other’s fault because you are both so exhausted from the eight-week-old baby hanging off your breast or in his tired arms at 2am and the five-year-old playing shoot ’em up cowboy as loudly as he can for attention in the midst of a sexual drought that neither one of you can remedy due to the aforementioned state of exhaustion. It’s the most beautiful thing in the world.<\/p>\n
I found a poem about a year ago and wasn’t smart enough to write down the author \u2014 it is so beautifully written that the creator deserves full credit and accolades. It says it better than I ever could, so enjoy. John, this one’s for you:<\/p>\n
Anniversary<\/strong>
\nThat you and I, I and you,
\nthis twenty-fifth year after
\nyou stamped your foot, shattered
\nthe glass, and friends, so many dead
\nor forgotten, applauded in a ballroom
\nlong abandoned, twenty-five years
\nof Monday good-byes, monthly wars
\nwith stacks of bills, bags of garbage,
\nfrozen gutters, nights filled
\nwith pink medicines, fevered cheeks
\non shoulders, the other hand reaching
\nfor the pediatrician’s call, termites
\nchewing, and hours waiting
\nfor the door to open, holding
\nour own daughter’s head vomiting
\nbeer into our own leaking toilet,
\nthat now, as mirrors mark the descent
\nof breasts, the tub catches silvered
\npubic hair and our eyes wear pouches
\nand hoods, as though expecting rain,
\nthat you and I could smell the salt
\nof each other, coming together after
\nlong absence, silent, still, staring up
\nat the darkening ceiling, naked in a house
\nwith empty, orderly bedrooms, the last
\nof dead roses and discarded boyfriends
\ntossed out, your hand touching mine,
\nour breathing slowing,
\nthe wonder of it all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So today is mine and John’s anniversary. Two years ago today, we were married in a beautiful church in New Orleans with everyone we love around us. So much has happened since then. We…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marriage","category-relationships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}