One Decade Ago

Ten years ago tonight, Himself and I first met.

We met at a Murder Mystery dinner. The first two things I found out about him were that he disliked bread and Italian food (we were having spaghetti and garlic bread - the first and last time the two of us ever ate that meal together).

I remember the first thing that came to my mind, "We have NOTHING in common." I was pretty quick to dismiss him as a result (in truth, I was pretty quick to dismiss ANY guy at that point in my life - I did not want to get married, and the surest way to that was to not go out with the same guy more than a couple of times). As it turns out, he was friends with my best friend's boyfriend (who then became fiance, husband and ex-husband - all before Himself and I were ever married), so it wasn't as easy to dismiss him as I thought it would be. And, as it turns out, we had far more in common than I thought.

He was excellent at the Murder Mystery game, and I was intrigued by how different he was from everyone else. We ended up talking for quite awhile after the event. In fact, talking(ironically, given Himself's hermit-like personality) was the hallmark of our early relationship. In fact, my roommates, at the end of my tenure at Warren Hall, gave me an award for being the "Most Likely to be Found Outside at 3 a.m. Deep in Conversation." Let's just say I didn't exactly get a lot of sleep that spring.

It's hard to believe it has been 10 years. Ten years ago, I was on a year-long break from college, trying to decide what to do next - working full-time in educational programming for the national 4-H organization and serving as the resident advisor to Warren Hall - a co-ed house for 24 college-aged youth. Himself was living the barracks at the Navy Hospital, working as a corpsman in the Navy and a vampire at one of the local hospitals.

In the 10 years since, Himself has moved four times, I have moved six times and we've moved collectively four times. We've worked for 16 companies between us, lived in three different states, a total of 10 cities and one aircraft carrier. We've been married six years, had a Siamese cat (Rameses), one child and will welcome a second one this year. We've driven tens of thousands of miles to pick up or drop off Grover and have driven the stretches of I-95 and Route 13 between VA and DE hundreds of times in that pursuit.

We have made and moved away from dozens of close friends ... which probably explains our reticence to work to find any new ones. We have written thousands of e-mails, used up hours on the phone and road-tripped to all sorts of cool places. We have laughed, loved, cried, fought, mourned and celebrated - and eaten our way through more amazing food than either of us probably should have.

More than that, in ten years we have grown. Given the adventures (good and bad) of the last 10 years, I'm looking forward to what the next 10 years holds for us.

I love you, Himself.