The garden (dahling)

D has worked his fingers to the bone (or nearly so) in the last three weeks, digging, shoveling, arranging brick edgings around nearly every part of our house, and sweating like a pig in a skater t-shirt. He says he enjoys doing all this yard work, and I have to believe him. Just like I enjoy shoveling snow I guess...he's a weird one, my husband. I'd rather have his version of weirdness any day.

Talking of which, the 25th of July will be our 10-year anniversary. We've been weird and nerdy together for 15 years, and friends for 20, so we know each other pretty well by now. When we first started dating I was sure we'd wind up killing each other, as we are both so competitive. But I learned early on that I am more likely to lose any game I play with him, and I'm mostly ok with that...mostly. We no longer play Dr. Mario together because I don't want to have to call the police and explain what I've done. So, ten years ago we were getting ready to walk down the aisle, and celebrating the fact that we would finally be in the same zip code after 5 years of long-distance dating, long-distance phone bills, long-distance wedding plans and anxieties and very sketchy email connections (AOL was nearly the only option, and a pretty pathetic one at that). It's got to be so much easier, and cheaper, to keep in touch now. I have not a little bit of envy when it comes to college students studying abroad who can just hop on the internet and chat with their loved ones for free. But I saved all of D's letters to me, many of them becoming more and more like found-object art pieces over time. He wrote me on Dunkin Donuts bags, a college brochure (which spelled his name Duran Dicom, his robot doppelganger), Color-Aid paper (evil stuff we used in Freshman Foundation classes. Gives me the shivers), and of course, sketchbook pages. And a bit of TP as well, apologizing for not writing so often and giving me leave to vent my frustrations by sending his letter down the porcelain highway. I didn't, but it was a near thing.

All that time apart prepared us well for so many challenges. We had to make an effort to communicate as much as possible, and now I miss him if we have a day without a long conversation. We had to resolve conflicts quickly and without a lot of face-to-face time, because we wanted to enjoy the little time we had together and not spend it re-hashing old grievances. I had been so horribly jealous of him when we were just friends, because he had all this success with seemingly little effort, the scholarship I wanted, the confidence (some would have said arrogance) to do his work without fear, the professors who really were excellent at Pratt, and conveniently went on sabbatical when I started attending the school...I was so mad, but at the same time, I could never stay mad at him for anything. It was really annoying, because I wanted to resent him somehow and then he'd do something incredibly generous and kind, and all the bitterness would crumble. It helps to be totally besotted with someone in this situation, sortof smooths the rough edges, but even now when I know he's human I can't stay mad at him for longer than a day. And when we were dating, we didn't have any secrets from each other, knew all the dirt and the pain and regrets of the past, so now we don't hide the truth, even if it's embarrassing or if it makes us look like morons. It's lovely to know that some other human being knows all this horrible stuff you've done or thought and still wants to share a bed with you. Gives me hope, and a glimmer of how God sees us as well. So, happy anniversary D, and I pray for many more.