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May 16, 2007

It is Wednesday...

...right?

Yesterday marked nine years that Fish and I have been married.

We both forgot.

It's not that we're not romantic people, me and Fish. We're affectionate and loving and committed and all that jazz. We're just not date people. I mean, we know all the dates - first kiss, marriage, birthdays, etc - it's just that usually, we don't know what exactly today is. That's really the problem. Not the then. It's the now. It wasn't such a problem when I worked in an office. I had daily deadlines, weekly meetings, production plans - everything centered around dates. Now, I have maybe ten deadlines a year for various things - first draft, revision, copyedits, galleys, proposals, etc - and to be honest, most of the time, I have no idea specifically what day it is. Forget the date. Call me on any given day and ask me what day of the week it is, and I'll hesitate before answering, "Wednesday? Right?"

I have friends who will never understand this. For girls, dates are pretty big. Birthdays, anniversaries, special little commemorations - in and of themselves, not a big deal. It's what they mean that matters. Remembering to celebrate the day shows you care. And they're right. And it's not that Fish and I don't care, it's that we just don't know what day it is. The typical anniversary for us goes a little something like this:

Me: (circa 5pm or so) Oh, shit.
Fish: What?
Me: It's our anniversary.
Fish: Oh, shit.
Me: Happy anniversary.
Fish: Happy anniversary.
Me: I love you.
Fish: I love you, too.
Me: We'll do better next year.
Fish: Yeah. Probably not.

Still, I try not to worry too much. I think what it comes down to is that we have a compatibility of spirit - we're both forgetters. You get one forgetter and one rememberer together, and it's a recipe for misery.

And while Fish and I are maybe not the most demonstratively romantic people in the world, we do have one thing going for us. Every conversation, every e-mail, every morning, every night, we always tell each other we love each other. I had a friend who, when we were too young yet to understand anything, said that she didn't want to always say, "I love you," to her husband when she got married. She wanted the words to be special, and she thought that the more you said them, the less they meant.

I'll argue the exact opposite. I'll argue that, the more often it's said, the more it means. I can't imagine only hearing it once a year, or once a month, or even once a day. We got married in Vegas because we cared more about being married than having a wedding, and we stay married without anniversaries because we care more about staying married. Every day, Fish makes me and our family his priority. Every day, he makes sure I know he'd walk in front of a train for any of us. Every day, he's a wonderful husband and father, and every day, he gives me everything I need.

As for Fish, well... according to the Chicago Public Library (and they oughta know) the gift for the ninth anniversary is... leather.

I'll bet anything that right now, he's wishing one of us had remembered.

This blog was brought to you by The Quest for the Holy Veil, Kimberly’s hilarious novel about making the best of things... even when everything goes horribly wrong.

Posted by Lani at 11:05 AM | Comments (11)

Comments

Posted by: Kimberly at May 16, 2007 1:25 PM

Posted by: The LC Eileen at May 16, 2007 1:32 PM

Posted by: Christina at May 16, 2007 1:43 PM

Posted by: brittney at May 16, 2007 2:24 PM

Posted by: Lis at May 16, 2007 3:16 PM

Posted by: Dia at May 16, 2007 4:46 PM

Posted by: RandomRanter at May 16, 2007 6:09 PM

Posted by: Kimberly L at May 16, 2007 10:16 PM

Posted by: Wendy Roberts at May 17, 2007 12:44 AM

Posted by: Amber at May 17, 2007 5:10 PM

Posted by: Keris at May 21, 2007 9:31 AM