Seven Years

I thought it would be quaint to begin this blog with the romantic, though perhaps rambling, story of how my marriage began, as my husband and I are sharing our seven year anniversary this month. I was in the final stages of mentally editing the amount of alcohol consumed and the unconcerned blowing of money (that now makes me cringe) that we partook in during our first months together while we were sitting across the table from each other last night, avoiding cleaning up the chunks of food that coated our post-dinner kitchen. While I haphazardly pushed the kids' dishes around in the trails of spilled rice he looked me in the eye and told me that I needed to start writing again, needed to start doing anything creative so I would stop hiding under the couch cushions and growling like a rabid animal when faced with daily stresses like, say, bathing. I replied that he was right; I didn't know what was keeping me from just editing the 30 short stories I'm 'almost done with,' or start the blog I've been meaning to create for like a year. I told him that I chickened out every time I tried to write. He agreed with me that my lack of motivation definitely had something to do with my gigantic 'chicken department,' and then went on to say, "I know what you're afraid of. You're afraid that the rest of the world will get a glimpse of you running down a dark alley in your post apocalyptic wasteland of a world in a not too distant future, casting spells to aid you in the major drug heist you're trying to pull off with the Tijuanan gangs whilst avoiding the fascist regime that the US government has become and - are you riding the unicorn in that story? Or was that the one where you're the undercover government agent on a secret mission in Prague?" I nodded numbly. "Prague," I mumbled. "Anyway, you've kept all that stuff secret for so long and now you're afraid to let the rest of the world enjoy the time travel and mind control and flying tigers and stuff." I looked at him, realizing that when HE said it, yes, it all sounded ridiculous. But really, a dark alley? A fascist regime? A POST APOCALYPTIC WORLD WITH FLYING TIGERS??? I'd read it. And so I decided, sitting there, that I would write again. Regularly. And I told him so. Just thinking about it gave me the energy to load the dishwasher, in a way that ensured that at least half of the dishes would get clean, even. And that is why I love my husband. Because he will poke at my bare eyeballs and yank on my hair until I do something, and he will do it without apology, if only because otherwise he would be trapped in a marriage with a raving lunatic whose chin needed to be wiped clean every few hours. And that is the important story, not the one with all the drinking and money spending and the suspiciously brief engagement. Maybe next year I'll tell that one. Maybe I'll even add a unicorn, to make it really interesting. But until then, I'm going to force myself to sit down every day, cocktail or no, and write at least a page, even if it's only for a blog that only my dad will read. Thanks dad. I know you'll be out there in cyberspace mentally editing every entry I make. Let me know if I overdo the unicorns, okay? And ahthankyou.