Of Mice and Men and Cashmere

Our marriage started with bagpipes, a dancing Cinderella, a drunk mice conga line, and the blessings of a hotel full of conventioning Shriners.  That should have been my first clue that we were in for quite an adventure.

Backpedalling a little:   I was just past my 25th birthday, sometime in October, when I began to become infatuated with a really hot 6'1 redhead in the next department over.  I didn't need him: by then I was making my own way in the world with a reasonable amount of success, an ok salary, and a halfway decent single-girl social life. But when he noticed me, my smiles lasted an extra second; every step had a little more bounce; and every morning I had one small extra reason to bounce out of bed.

When he asked me to marry him several months later,  we were still in the throes of blind adoration. It was an easy enough question to answer.  The remaining early passion carried us unblinkingly through our September wedding day, our first apartment, and buying our first house.

But things change.  The hot skinny redhead  was apparently a brunette all along. His waistline  expanded as his hairline receded. 
To be fair, I hardly remained the size 8 perky, made-up, hair-curled fair-skinned bride of our wedding photos, either. 

We began to learn that the very qualities that attracted us to each other have frustrating flip-sides. We learned that bodily functions happen, that we are both reasonably hopeless in any forms of physical labor or craftsmanship, that neither of us much like to mow the lawn, and that we have differing concepts of "clean".

 Our first full-on fight, about 6 months post-wedding, involved doing the laundry:   He brought up a load of clean clothes he'd washed while I was at work on yet another weekend, and set it on the bed. I found it there a few hours later, all mounded and piled in the basket, getting wrinklier by the minute.   And right on top were two of my favorite sweaters… or what was left of them after a run through the dryer on "hot". With unzipped blue jeans.   

   It started with our then-normal  overly polite dance of words, until the stony silence he tended to adopt when upset finally pushed me over the edge. The anger I'd been building up over a million little things finally burst out… the flames building higher as his continued silence only fueled them.  It took a lot of screaming, but his bubble of silence finally burst too. And only then did we both finally  open up about what was really upsetting us, calm down enough to see things truly from the other's point of view, begin to repair to disconnects, and go to bed forgiving, and forgiven.

That was the day our relationship changed. That was the day the oath we'd sworn in front of our minister, friends, family, and a hotel full of Shriners finally turned into a partnership of equals, committed to facing life together, and creating a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. That was the day our mutual infatuation turned into a marriage.  All because of a blue cashmere sweater. (in fact, the very same one I'd worn the evening he proposed)

Tomorrow, we celebrate 12 years to the day since we traded rings in the Marriott's Grand Ballroom. 12 years of arguments, vacations, illnesses, dental problems, parties,  holidays, family functions. 12 years of moves across town, across state lines, of job changes, dog-walkings, dishwashing, shopping. 

12 years of the ups and downs, the beautiful sights and knockdown fights, the joys and pain of everyday life with a guy who has far more faith in me than I do, who never sweats the little things, who find laughter and joy and adventure in the most random places, who has no sense of ownership or privacy or shame… who knows exactly when to stop asking me questions and start hugging or taking over decisions… and who puts up with all of my million and one faults?  That is certainly beyond price. 

And, yes, 12 years of ruined sweaters and blouses and swimsuits…  Because "someone" still occasionally forgets to read labels. (And forgets that he's supposed to be banned from the laundry room for life.)

But that's ok. 

I can get a new cashmere sweater down the street at Kohl's. 

Starting a new marriage would be trickier -- Where I would ever find another conga-line of drunk bagpiping shriner-mice on motor-trikes?

~ The Sappy Part:  Clayton, you've been the central character in my life's story for fully one-third of it's lived-but-not-yet-written pages. I still have no idea why you put up with me, but am eternally grateful and delighted that you have. Perhaps you really are not the "Best. Husband. Ever..." but you are certainly the best husband for me.  A ma vie de coer entier.   I love you. ~