A celebration
My wife and I are different in many complementary ways, but we both share a general disdain for spectacle. When presented with the question of how to celebrate our first anniversary, this low-key attitude left us with very few options.
So we went shopping.
Well, we did go to a fantastic restaurant for lunch. But the rest of the day amounted to a celebration of capitalism.
Actually we didn't buy all that much. We just wandered around some malls and shops. We ran into an old high school friend. We made fun of a lot of people. We had a blast.
I had actually planned a few things, but the Fates had obviously conspired to take all plot from our day. Completely undeterred, we went where the spirit or red lights led and had a fantastic time at every stop. I can safely say that our day was all the better for the freestyling.
Going into this thing, I knew that my single biggest obstacle in making a success of the marriage would be fighting the aloofness that comes much too easy to me. Early in our relationship, before marriage, my wife occupied this place in my mind completely separate from the rest of my life. Now that this is a shared life, I have found myself fighting acclimation, knowing that my usual attitude towards all things could never be fair to her. I spent so much time dreaming up these great romantic gestures that rarely materialized that I wound up frustrated to such a point that aloofness proved the best escape.
I should at this point admit that my wife, while normally quite low-key, is much more of a romantic than I - she couldn't be much worse, could she? Being with her means displaying affection in grand ways from time to time. I would like to think that from time to time I excel at said gestures, and that those gestures almost always come from genuine feelings rather than reluctant obligation.
The point is that our relationship was not born of Shakespeare. We were friends all through high school, friends that respected one another more than any other friend. After infrequent contact for years after graduation, we discovered that the respect had only grown outside the cliques and immaturity of high school. We were best of friends for years before finally admitting to each other that this respect came with a serious longing for so much more. We would drive around to nowhere in particular, most often and memorably finding ourselves on the swings at Lowry Park, watching the sun rise to the soundtrack of fascinating conversation or beautiful silence. Even after the romantic tension melted away, our best "dates" were canoeing on the Hillsborough and feeding the ducks outside the music building at USF.
Yes, I think our first anniversary celebration was ideal. Maybe next year we'll do something more blog-worthy. This one was just for us.
Baby baby
Ain't it true
I'm immortal
When I'm with you
- P.J. Harvey, "Big Exit"
Posted by Joel at 11/15/2005 10:35:00 PM
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