For My Lady

Ten years ago today, we got a bunch of people together in a room with an aisle down the middle of it, where Amy (wearing a doily on steroids) and I (wearing a rather dapper suit) exchanged a bunch of vows and officially got hitched.  There apparently was a party that followed this vow exchange ceremony — which we’ll call a “wedding” for brevity’s sake — but I have very few recollections of this party.  Not because I was inebriated or some such (in fact, I was quite sober), it was more that my brain was still processing the events that had just transpired.  Events which were easily the most life-changing things I’d been ever been through to that point next to being born (which is about as life changing as you get).

I’ve heard that the desert table at our little post-wedding party — which I understand is called a “reception” — was to die for.  I never saw it.  In fact, I never actually ate any wedding cake due to the fact that I was too busy talking to everyone and thanking them for showing up and sitting through what I believe to be among the most boring things people ever have to sit through (being weddings).  All the while, my brain just repeated “this is actually happening, this is actually happening, this is actually happening.”

You might get the impression that I had butterflies or cold feet.  Not the case.  I was excited as all get out.  I just never believed on some level that I’d ever be happy.  Like, permanently happy.  This is not to say that being married automatically makes me happy, but rather that being married to Amy does.  Sure, there have been rough patches.  There have been times when she should have run away screaming never to be heard from again.  After all, as many might guess I am not an easy person to live with.

To be sure, long before we got married Amy was warned by my family and certain “friends” of ours not to get involved with the likes of me (rest assured I know who you are).  But, boldly she ignored them all and stepped right into the heaping piles of the mess that is me and started digging.

I will get to the point.  I am a very lucky man.  I have been with Amy for fourteen years, we’ve been married for ten, and they have easily been the best years of my life.  She has raised the bar for who I am, and helped me to reach it.  She has been my biggest supporter, my greatest love, my best friend.  I cannot begin to thank her for all she’s done for me, nor can I repay her.  There’s just too much.

That she still is excited to see me when she walks in the door everyday is something I marvel at.  That she’s never done anything more than joked with me for my repeated breaking of the “good” wine glasses leaves me amazed.  That I can say anything to her, no matter how awful, and she continues to love me despite it, humbles me.  That we’ve never run out of things to talk about; that we can sit comfortably in silence; that she still laughs at my horrible jokes; makes me grateful beyond these mere words.

Truly I am a lucky man, and I wish that everyone were just as lucky.