Today is SEVEN Years!

For the past several days I have been trying to figure out what to say about our seven year anniversary.  There were so many choices, so many options, and so many different ways to talk about our seven year journey.  This has been a journey I wouldn't wish to share with anyone else.  I would start a story in my head and then the story would go in a different direction, then becoming a totally different story.  This has happened many times over the course of several days.  I mean, my gosh, in seven years we have covered a lot of territory.  So, since there has been so much to cover, I decided that instead of trying to summarize seven years of marriage and what that means to me, I would tell a different story.  I would tell a story of one evening.  One evening that changed my entire life.  I decided to tell you the story of our engagement, through my eyes of course.  I'm sure Mark has his own interpretation of the evening, but hey this is my story.

First, I probably need to give you a little back story.  You see, Mark and I never talked much about marriage.  I loved him, a lot, but I didn't want to be that girl that was constantly bring up marriage and babies and he finally felt pressure to marry me (hey, it happens).  So I just didn't talk about it.  You also have to remember I was older and I had waited a long time to find my lobster (FRIENDS reference), my split apart (Plato reference), you know the person I was supposed to marry.  I certainly wasn't going to twist someone's arm to get married.  Plus, with this guy I figured I might spook him off and heavens I wasn't about to do that.  He was too fabulous.  I had to play my cards right with this one.  As you can see, it has certainly paid off.  So, we didn't talk about marriage much, if at all really.  However, I did agree to move in with him.  Funny, no marriage talks, but we agreed to live together.

I must also tell you that I don't care or require too much in the way of fancy things.  Fancy restaurants don't mean much to me.  I don't care much about fancy clothes or shoes as I am most comfortable in my old pair of broken in blue jeans.  I don't care for crowds and I don't like to be the center of attention.  These things my sweet boyfriend knew about me.

So we have decided to move in together and the big day has arrived.  Moving day, or moving evening I guess.  We weren't moving furniture, just boxes.  We were old enough to realize the value of professional movers and they were coming the next day.  However, during our seven years of marriage we seem to have forgotten that because he and I moved practically everything in our most recent move.  I think my back still hurts a little.  Anyway, we spent the evening making trips back and forth from his place, to my place, to our new place.  We went up and down stairs until we were almost exhausted.  Finally he suggested that we take a much needed break.  Little did he realize at the time, that once I sit down, I usually don't get back up.  So here we are on the brink of exhaustion, in the midst of 30 or so boxes, no chairs to sit on, sweaty and fabulous looking of course.  He brings in a six back of ice cold beer and we sit.  We are both so excited about our new adventure and the kitchen in this place was incredible.  Seriously, I was excited about that.  My previous kitchen was about the size of a postage stamp.  Terrible really.

So, here we are sitting, relaxing, and enjoying our first moment in the new place.  It was nice.  It felt right.  It was exciting.  All of a sudden, Mark turns to face me and he starts talking about how much he loves me and how wonderful our lives are together.  See, we just fit.  I realized this much sooner than he did, but hey he came around.  So he is telling me all of these wonderful things and I realize that this is a little different conversation.  I mean, we had certainly had heart to heart talks before, but this was different.  This was emotional and we both started crying.  Maybe I knew what was coming or something.  I'm not really certain.  As he is talking he reaches into his pocket and pulls out this little black box.  Oh, how I had waited for this day.  As he opens the little black box I'm fairly certain that I just started screaming.  I don't even know if he was able to get out the full, "will you marry me," speech.  I was just screaming and crying, screaming and crying.  This went on for quite a while.  I think I went to every room to see how sparkly my ring looked.  I couldn't even believe it.  I had no idea he was going to propose.  I had not even the tiniest clue.  He never said a word about rings.  I never mentioned what I liked or didn't like.  I loved that it was a surprise.  I loved that he knew me so well that he knew what I would like without ever having to ask me.  I loved that he knew I didn't want a big to do with a bunch of on lookers gawking at me and LORD help him if he had stuffed the ring into a dessert or a glass or any of those things.  I loved that he knew me so well to know that for me, it wasn't about the place, it wasn't about the dress and LORD knows it wasn't about the way that I looked.  It was about two people who loved each other beyond measure and more than anything wanted to spend their lives together.  All of the extra, well it's just extra.  It was a perfect evening.

We could no longer fight the exhaustion and I had looked at my ring in every possible place so we finally decided to make our way back to a place with furniture.  We are sitting there when all of a sudden he says, "I don't think you ever answered me."

"What?"  I said

"You never answered whether or not you will marry me."

"I didn't?"

"No, you didn't."

As I sat there and replayed the events in my head I realized he was in fact correct.  I was too busy screaming, crying and running around looking at myself with my new ring that I never slowed down to answer him.  Now, surely by my reaction he knew the answer, but he wanted an official answer nonetheless.

So I gave him an answer and the rest is history.

Happy anniversary to my lobster, my split apart, my fabulous husband.

I love you!