Friday, April 21, 2017 my husband and I celebrate 16 years of marital status. We met at a wedding. We were partnered. My college roommate, Ellen, married Steve, my husband's college roommate and Ellen devised a brilliant plan to pair us up. I was STILL single and living in Brooklyn and my soon-to-be wedding partner had just moved to NYC and was, conveniently, also single. Ellen figured if no sparks were flying between us after her wedding weekend introduction, at the very least Steve's friend would now know someone in a very big city. (As a side note- I have been a bridesmaid about 9 times! This is completely irrelevant to this story)
Three years almost to the day after that strategically planned introduction, we married. And here we are sixteen years later. When I reflect on my marriage, sometimes I feel the universe is laughing at us. I don't mean this in a bad way. My husband is great and amazing and supportive and blah blah blah. But we are polar opposites in our design choices. Given his way, we would live in a modern, minimally decorated home with very few things. I am, by contrast, a collector, curator, hoarder and LOVE stuff. Especially other people's old stuff. He loves new and shiny. I treasure old, rusty and crusty.
But he must love me despite our design differences because he tolerates my stuff all over the place. He looks the other way when I paint furniture in the dining room and he even helps me occasionally load and unload a trailer for a market...at 5am...in the rain.
Fast forward to this Friday, our anniversary. He's taking a couple hours off work and I have a scheduled day off. (It just worked out that way lest you think we are being romantic). We'll do lunch at one of our favorite local joints and then...
The Craigslist pickup. I scored a heavy, solid wood, old workbench for $10. While most normal couples would be at 5 o'clock happy hour leisurely sipping champagne and gazing lovingly at each other whilst appreciating their good fortune at finding one another amongst the millions of souls in the universe; we'll be sweating it out squeezing a super heavy workbench into the back of our SUV at a stranger's house while exchanging a few choice words. But that, good people, is my love language. The fact that my husband would agree to pick up somebody else's old crap...old HEAVY crap... on our anniversary is true love and devotion.
And so when I'm retreating to the garage to tinker at my old, heavy, crusty workbench because my husband made me angry about something or other, my heart will melt a little knowing the reason that workbench is even in the garage in the first place is because he loves me. He really does love me. And I him.
