Love and Marriage

On our wedding day - Saturday, June 21st, 2003

Yesterday was our eighth wedding anniversary so I figured this was a good time to write a bit about the husband, because I realized I’ve written many things about the illness but very few things about him.

We met in 1999. We were out in a big group of people and the first thing we did was have a massive argument; we were both in other relationships at the time, though we probably should have known then they didn’t stand a chance. We started dating in September after many months grudging détente from our first monumental and very public fight. Two months later we decided to get married, it ended up taking us three and a half years, through no fault of ours. Though we promptly moved in together so as not to waste any time.

In 1999 soon after we started dating

The husband is a charismatic guy, he’s funny and serious at the same time. He knows a lot about a lot, I don’t know how he does it. He often comes up with completely random facts that totally pick up flagging dinner conversations, he’s the king of small talk, though apparently he hates it. He’s very good at manual labor, yet has mainly had white-collar jobs. I’m completely confident we will never go hungry, in the event of an apocalyptic scenario he’ll always find something to do.

 He’s good with the children, though we have different parenting styles. He takes time to be with them, and in the unlikely event that I can’t take care of them he does a stellar job.

But all these things don’t really tell you what he’s like, do they?

Let’s see if I can do a better job with some anecdotes:

One day he was driving home with my brother and they find a horse in the middle of the road. My brother freaked out, the husband got out of the car, approached the horse, calmed him down and took him back to the stables nearby. My brother came home in awe, and said he was like the horse-whisperer.

2004 - first wedding anniversary

On my twenty-sixth birthday, the husband put twenty six post-it notes with Happy Birthday and a number written on them all over the house, in the order that I would find them in. Happy Birthday 1 was in front of the toilet, HB 2 on my toothbrush, HB3 on my coffee cup… and so on. I spent the entire day running into post-it notes as I went about my regular activities. It was the best birthday ever, bar none. I was amazed that he knew my daily routine so well, including what I did when he wasn’t around and I spent a delightful day on a treasure hunt for post its.

2005 - second wedding anniversary

He went all the way to Houston to ask for my hand in marriage. And he had to ask my Dad, my Mom and my Brother. Separately. He was really, really serious about marrying me.

2006 - third anniversary

On another birthday he went through a whole song and dance about not being able to be there cause he had to be away for work, and as I was bitterly complaining about it to a friend at a bar I see a huge bouquet of red roses walking towards me on the husband’s legs.

2007 - fourth anniversary

On our wedding day, he dropped everything and came to my house to talk me down from an attack of wedding hysteria.

2008 - fifth anniversary

 When our first baby, the boy, was born he was so nervous that he pulled his back out and spent the first two days lying in the hospital bed next to me getting the same pain killers as I was getting after the c-section, certainly not helpful, but it shows he’s empathic.

2009 - sixth anniversary

When our second baby, the girl, was born he supported me throughout the entire labor and birth, physically and emotionally despite the fact the leukemia was probably already quite advanced. We didn’t know, of course, but he did it.

2010 - seventh anniversary

And yesterday morning I woke up to this:

Breakfast surprise

There are many more things I could tell you, these are the first ones that popped into my mind unbidden today. Obviously, we’ve had hard times and bad times along with the good times, but these times show you what kind of guy he is most of the time, and how lucky I am to have him.

2011 - eighth anniversary - CHEERS!

Virtual Coffee {15} and Anniversaries

Hello friends and welcome to coffee.

If we were really having coffee today I would explain why I haven’t posted anything on this blog for a week. A week. Crazy right? Last week was very busy.

On Wednesday I went to Rome for basically 36 hours. My mother is getting married in September (gasp! More on that soon). And I had to go down to Rome for a fitting of my dress for her wedding. Initially, we were supposed to make a family trip of it, but it never seemed like a good time, the husband’s not 100% yet, so we decided to forgo the whole me travelling alone with kids production and I just popped down overnight.

It was exhausting, both physically and emotionally. Physically because we live out in the middle of nowhere, so the closest airport is an hour and a half away (I realize that for many of you that is no time at all, but we used to live in Milan, where the farthest airport was a half hour away at most), so I had to get up at what amounted to the middle of the night to make my nine am flight. Of course the kiddos were upset, nervous, angry at my departure so they decided to take turns waking up and calling for me every half an hour until I left the house. Guess how much sleep I had that night… 

Incidentally, this is one of those thorns in my side regarding age, I mean, in my twenties I regularly forwent sleep for more fun and interesting things with nary a consequence, now, barely 10 years later (and I’m stating years here quite loosely) it takes me a week to get over one sleepless night.

Emotionally, because it was the first time I was leaving the kids behind and it was way harder than I thought. Let’s just emphasize “way harder” and leave it at that.

On Friday I basically attached both kids to my sides and we spent the morning in symbiotic bliss. In the afternoon I had to leave again to go to the beach and check out the renovation progress. Let me tell you, if the workers keep this pace up I’m going to have to officially apologize for all the mean things I’ve ever said and thought about Italian workers, because they are FAST. Which basically means we are now the ones hustling to get our end of the work done, choosing tiles and floors, deciding where we want the electrical outlets and stuff, and ordering furniture.

Saturday we had our annual medical convention at the Terme (where I work, more on that coming soon too), so I basically spent the day on my feet with a smile plastered on my disgruntled face, dodging problems like bullets. Thankfully the weekend picked right back up with the arrival of our good friends from Milan.

Yesterday, we had more visitors from Milan this time the husband’s uncle and cousin.

Basically, I just wrote a really long post of excuses for why I’ve been ignoring my blog. Mind blowing content, as usual!

Let me try and pick this post back up with the last bit of news, then. Today is our wedding anniversary! We made it to eight years by the skin of our teeth (a ridiculous expression if ever there was one). I’m dedicating an entire post to the husband tomorrow, but today let me just say this:

Marriage is harder than I ever thought possible. We’ve had wonderful, amazing times together as well as horrible moments I’d rather forget. We’ve done amazing things and regrettable things. We’ve whispered and screamed and shouted in glee. We’ve wanted to kill each other and sacrifice ourselves to save the other.  We’ve held on tight to each other and pushed away. We’ve loved and hated each other. We’ve been angry, felt guilty, ashamed and resentful, but we’ve also been happy, felt love, contentment and joy. But the most important thing, to me, is that we’re here, eight years on, together, fighting to keep this marriage alive and on track. For our children, for ourselves. It hasn’t been easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is, is it?

Now go visit our hostess Amy!

p.s. I changed my comment format, I’m using disqus now. Feedback on how it works, if it loads quickly enough, if it’s easy to post comments, user-friendly etc. is very welcome. Basically, let me know what you think!!