Tag Archives: marriage

a decade

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If I had stayed married, today would be my 10th wedding anniversary.

I guess it says a lot that the day doesn’t register much with me anymore. I didn’t even think about it until I looked at my phone this morning and noticed the date. I’m not sad about it at all, it just feels like some sort of notable milestone. Ten years. A whole decade. And I’m not sure my life could look more different now than it did ten years ago: I was in my 20s, had no kids, lived in Seattle, had a completely different career path. It’s all changed so much in a relatively short amount of time.

I guess it’s one of those Sliding Doors moments where you wonder what would happen if you’d taken another path in life. What if I had never married Dave in the first place? What would my life look like then? But I can’t venture too far down that road. Despite the failure of my marriage, and all the pain and suffering it caused, if I had chosen any other route in life, I wouldn’t have Catie and Lucy. How could I possibly regret any choices I made that brought those two amazing little people into my life?

I don't think I'll ever get tired of watching Catie read to Lucy.
I mean seriously. Just look at them.

My dad once made a comment about Chris, that “it’s too bad you didn’t meet him first.” I pointed out that if I had, he wouldn’t have the two granddaughters he adores so much. And besides that, I think the failure of our previous relationships is a pretty critical element of what makes my relationship with Chris work: we’re both keenly aware of our own flaws, and how things can go wrong in a relationship, and we actively work on not repeating those mistakes with each other.

Ironically, today is also Chris’s anniversary with his ex. Different year – his was 2004, mine was 2005 – but it’s a little weird that we share the same anniversary of the day we married other people. We also separated from our respective ex-spouses at nearly the same time; Dave and I split in August 2011, Chris and his ex split a few weeks later, in September 2011. I don’t really believe in the concept of fate, but it does feel like God or the universe or something was looking out for us, and made sure that we were both where we needed to be at the right time.

Chris & me at my cousin's wedding a couple of weeks ago. We clean up ok.

Whatever it was – God, fate, random coincidence, whatever – I sure am grateful for it.

Ten Years Ago Me probably wouldn’t recognize Current Me, but I can honestly say that if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. So in that regard, I guess I can say “happy anti-versary” to me.

and yes, we're getting a baby-sitter on Saturday night

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Stuff from this week:

1. Mother’s Day was almost a week ago, and I sort of completely forgot to mention anything about it. But it was lovely. We went to Charlotte to hang out with my sister, and had a great time. We took Catie to a Children’s Museum on Saturday, which was a lot of fun, then went out for a fantastic dinner.

Catie playing at the kids' museum in Charlotte

And my sister, who is awesome, got me roses for Mother’s Day. It would’ve been nice if I’d remembered to take them with me when we left her apartment, but I forgot them at her place. Oh well. They were lovely.

On Sunday, we went out for brunch, then walked around downtown Charlotte for a while.

Tracy & Catie walking down the street in Charlotte

one of my favorite pics from our weekend

me & Catie on my fourth Mother's Day

It was a great weekend.

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2. My stupid elbow still hurts from where I fell on it, and the scab on it is absolutely revolting, but I’m still working out almost every day. I’m just being careful not to do things (like certain yoga poses) that involve putting pressure on my elbow. I’ll be fine. It’s really the food part of the whole diet/exercise thing that I need to work on. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to tackle that. I have a lot of ideas and I’m still trying to sort them out. I’ll write more about it when I figure out what the heck I’m doing.

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3. Catie is in this phase where she goes back and forth between being absolutely fun and delightful and amazing and wonderful, and a 37-inch tall hellbeast demon. And you never know which kid you’re going to get at any point in the day. I don’t really know what to do about that, other than just ride out the bad moments, implement discipline when necessary, and try not to lose my temper (that last part is the hardest one). It’s just difficult when she’ll go for like a week without needing to be put in time out at all, then all of a sudden we’ll have to do four time-outs in a single day. Which may be average for a toddler at this phase, but it feels like a lot to me.

But, you know, then she’ll say something that’ll have Dave and me doubled over laughing, because she’s an absolute riot. So I guess we’ll keep her, in spite of the occasional tantrums.

Catie next to (yet another) fountain in downtown Charlotte
She’s kinda cute too.

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4. I had a little moment of panic there on Monday, when Teenie wouldn’t stop barfing. Everything she ate came right back up (and this was after she coughed up a big hairball). I called the vet’s office, they said to bring her in immediately. They gave her a shot of some anti-nausea meds and an injection of fluids under her skin so she wouldn’t get dehydrated, and they ran some bloodwork. She’s borderline hyperthyroid (she’s also dropped over 4 pounds since we left Washington in 2008, which seems like a lot for a small cat – she went from 14 pounds to 9.8), so we’ll keep an eye on that and address it as necessary.

The whole thing was pretty upsetting and scary, and it reminded me of this post I wrote a while back, and oh god, if something is really wrong with the cat, how on earth am I going to explain it to Catie? I had a pretty big freak-out about that. But it seems that Teenie is ok. She stopped barfing, so either the meds worked or she got it out of her system. And her bloodwork is otherwise normal. So I’m thankful that I get to postpone that particular horrible (and yes, inevitable, I realize) conversation for a while.

Of course, if the damn cat doesn’t stop pooping in random corners of our living room, she may not be long for this world anyway. Argh.

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5. Dave and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary on Saturday. Five years. I can’t even wrap my head around that. It’s not that much time in the grand scheme of things, is it? It’s almost like, “Really? That’s it? Only five years?” Because in a lot of ways, it feels like we’ve been together forever. (In a good way. I promise.) So, I’m a little early, but happy anniversary, babe. Love you.

P.S. Apparently this is the “wood” anniversary. I swear I’m not making that up. And yes, I giggled when I read that, because I’m a 12 year-old boy.