And this year, with the additional...Bonus Chaos...surrounding the end of the academic term...and some kid graduating from High School, or whatever...was no exception. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't completely ignored--there were cards exchanged, and flowers bestowed (Good job, Husband!). However, I feel the need to circle back a bit and give this particular milestone some attention...since after all, it marked 20 YEARS of marriage for us.
First of all: yikes, right? While trying to wrap my head around two decades of togetherness, I found my thoughts drifting to certain...significant markers....along the highway of our shared journey--which I was then inspired to find hard evidence of, by paging nostalgically back through shelves full of family photo albums, naturally! So without further ado, here are just a couple of high points in the WestEnders saga:
First of all, of course, there was a wedding. In which the goofball groom was forever immortalized while making Mickey Mouse ears out of fine china, before (somewhat) settling down for the (marginally) more dignified "official cake cutting ceremony". And yep, just in case you were wondering, this represents 100% typical behavior from the man of the house, both way back when, and now. Hey, this just goes to show that he takes his job--as the lightener...upper...in this partnership--verrry seriously (which I realize is an oxymoron, but just go with it, okay? You know what I mean...)Next up in the Timeline of Us that he and I had concocted, sometime during the planning stages in the year or so before our nuptials, there was the edict: Buy a House. It still seemed like a logical step, since we were renting a condo in a costly area at the time, so we got right to work on it, once our regularly scheduled activities resumed after the honeymoon trip. In the research phase of the operation, Husband took it upon himself to narrow down our areas of interest, to keep our excitement in check and prevent us from going off willy-nilly with an agent, scouring the whole countryside for available abodes.
So, after about 5 months of house tours, we ended up purchasing a home on a quiet cul-de-sac...from which I made the mile-and-a-half stroll to java heaven many, MANY times over the next decade-plus. Just one example of how teamwork makes the dream work, baby! (Or some such nonsense...he can't always be the silly one, right?)
Whew, with that out of the way, it was time to sit back and revel in a calm, peaceful time, at the start of our union, yeah? Um...nope. You see, it just so happened that Husband and I were entering our 30s when we tied the knot, and you know what that means...if your Couple Agenda involves trying to add a bambino or two to the mix, you might want to start thinking along those lines.
Aaaand--funny story--we figured out later why I felt soooo tired on the day we moved into the new digs...when a pregnancy test a few weeks later revealed that I'd been just-barely-expecting...while hauling boxes, unpacking, and arranging furniture! (Cutting it close...but sticking to the Grand Scheme!) Eventually Derek made his appearance, bringing our merry little band to a total of 3...and allowing the munchkin to almost immediately join in the nuttiness of his new tribe, as shown by the chic farm motif we adopted for his first Halloween.Okay, I'm not gonna lie--the whole "parenting thing" ...took a little getting used to?...Was no bed of roses for a while? (Let's go with that...) But eventually, you start getting a regular amount of sleep again, and the tiny, helpless 'round-the-clock-needy baby grows a bit and gains some independence. And then, wild and crazy thoughts sneakily begin to creep up on you...such as "Hey, should we try to have another one?" And rather than squash this madness, you go ahead and entertain the notion...until one day you throw caution to the wind, and recklessly decide to go ahead and give it a shot...and are incredibly fortunate to welcome another healthy son to round out the clan...in our case, the same year we commemorated our 5th anniversary.
(Tangential note: those utterly adorkable sweaters were gifts from one of Husband's aunts. While I would never in a million years have purchased them myself, I made sure to dress the boys in them as often as possible while they still fit...probably because I already sensed it would be the only time in their lives I would manage to coerce them into matching holiday outfits. Totally worth it...)Then, moment by moment, day by day, life keeps rolling along...until you wake up one morning and realize that those wedding festivities...happened 10 years ago. What the WHAT? While it seemed improbable to Husband and me that so much time had passed, we couldn't refute the cold hard facts of...calendar math...which showed that 5-year old Riley was entering Kindergarten...and therefore, it must be true. But I swear, seemingly no sooner had we accepted this and moved on, than ANOTHER 5 YEARS flew by (if someone can offer an explanation for this phenomenon of the...space/time continuum...or something....I'd be most grateful. And no, "You're just getting old" is not good enough, thankyouverymuch...)
Along the way we dealt with the usual things that make up one's daily existence--work, and school activities, and kids' sports seasons, and visits with extended family, and vacations...and a million other normal, everyday things. Somewhere around Year 15 of the WestEnders history, however, we encountered a slight speed bump in our path...when one of us (yeeaahhh....that would be "me") reached the end of her never-very-high tolerance for the annual bane of the great outdoors known as...Winter. I therefore announced my desire to relocate to someplace with more temperate weather...and informed everyone else that they had better prepare themselves to come along with me.
That's how it came to pass that the Team WestEnders franchise abandoned their northern...ish headquarters to transplant their roots in North Carolina...and with a relatively brief period of fairly minimal upheaval, we got ourselves situated, figured out the new work/school/soccer/etc. details, and got back to doing what we do.
At this point you might be thinking that I surely had plenty of warning that we were about to be collecting congratulations on 20 years of...being hitched. And I suppose that's true...and yet somehow it still managed to take me by surprise a little bit. Obviously, we've undergone quite a bit of...evolution...over a score of years. But just to demonstrate how some things never change, you'll notice the card that Husband picked out to present to me for this auspicious occasion...admirably non-sappy...and complete with an original, groan-inducing message. Yep, that's the man I married, all those years ago! Siiighhhh...All I can say is: here's to loads more adventures (even if it means we have to wear unattractive headgear)...plenty of unbridled goofiness (especially if it's captured forever on film)...but perhaps fewer terrible puns (not bloody likely, but it never hurts to ask, right?)! Cheers to us!
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