Three years. That's 1095 days married to Tucker, since we are on a nickname tangent again. Three years of watching perfectly good lip glosses disappear into his giant mouth that could wake the dead (but won't, even by request) with yelling, singing, or a mix of the two (or snoring or laughing, when he really gets going). Ben is only quiet when things aren't good. Boy, is he ever loud these days.
Three years of defiance in the face of relentless pressure. Three years of awesomely destructive food fights and ridiculous laughter that doesn't cease until someone wets their pants (usually me, fine, okay). Three years of doubts and arguments and enough tears to lift a large vessel and carry it to a far-away land and an effort to build a life that is so fucking normal that castles have been replaced with chalets and fairytales with a gritty, perfect reality swept off the sidewalk that leads to nowhere. He took the crown. He put it up somewhere high. I can't have it back, I am told.
(It's the journey, stupid. Stop waiting).
Three years of growing pains and butting heads. Three years of desperate, legendary love. We're doing just fine if you call living in the garden of good and evil acceptable accommodations. We slay people in our day to day lives with our devotion and our loyalties and we worry them with our mutual infatuation. The need to shelter each other is larger than life and it doesn't erode into the sea because we put in a breakwater and everything is going to be okay. We keep testing but these bonds are holding and we are wrapped up in love, held tight by our friends and our promises to each other. They call them vows, we call them promises and promises are things you don't break.
Three years, and we are no longer newlyweds but we still have a long way to go before we qualify as long-haulers. That's okay, time seems to move quickly when it comes to happy things. We'll be there soon enough.
Ben pointed out, while he was in the shower and I was brushing my teeth, that the third year modern anniversary gift category is glass. I asked him what we should do about that. He said he knew, and he pressed himself, fully naked, up against the glass shower door. He actually put too much pressure on the door and it flew open and the bathroom got soaked. I got soaked. Ben didn't care. He pulled me against his chest and hung on until we almost broke our necks on the slippery floor. After that other things may have happened, and I'll leave those up to your imagination for now, I have a date to get ready for.
Happy Anniversary, big Ben. I love you. Still. Always.
Hot damn.
