Five Years

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Five years ago today, I was single and D$ was throwing a birthday party at his house. To the shock and admiration of my best guy friend (who didn't know our backstory*) I go up to D$ and the following conversation ensues.

MWK: Hey. Um...are you doing to make out with that girl?** Because I want to stay here tonight.

D$: What? Really? Okay! (Or something like that. Whatever it was, he was clearly going to forgoe making out with said girl).

MWK: Cool. Don't get too drunk to fuck.***

D$ (looks down at red plastic cup filled with cheap beer): I'll start drinking water now.

MWK: (Saunters away to talk to gaping guy friend feeling very bad ass and good about herself).

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3 and a half years ago, we move in together. We impulse-adopt two kittens and D$ yells "WHY DO YOU HAVE TO DEFY ME?" when I keep changing the way the toilet paper roll hangs up.

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Two years ago, D$ proposes in a blizzard in Wisconsin, before a John Prine concert. I yell "WHAT? ARE YOU SERIOUS??!" and forget to say yes until he reminds me that he is kneeling in the snow waiting for an answer. We celebrate after the concert with random hippies and cheap beer.

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Last year, we are still living together, planning a wedding. Life post-engagement is stressful in new ways and easier in ways that used to be hard. We snuggle the kitties a lot.

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This year. Today. Today we have been together for five years, married for 7 months (as of yesterday). We ditch out of work early and meet on the 2:30 bus to go home and take a walk together in the newly-discovered sunshine. D$ asks, "So when do you want to have babies?" and then almost falls down on the ice. We eat at the local pizza joint, gazing like lovestruck idiots over a mound of sausage and black olives. We face a world of uncertainty. We are in love. We are lucky. We are happy.

*This sounds interesting, but mostly it involves us getting drunk and making out over a series of months/years when we both happened to be single. It also involved D$ repeatedly trying to convince me to date him and me repeatedly saying "No, thank you" with varied levels of politesse.

**D$ had been flirting with some girl. To be fair, I had told him a few weeks ago that I didn't want to make out with him anymore. But I was not about to be beat out by some other woman. Unacceptable.

***We did not fuck that night. Please, I'm a LADY.

****Photo by me. My work had an event and was just going to let these flowers go to waste, so I brought them home to brighten our apartment. D$ asked if they were for him, for our anniversary. But they are clearly for me. And yes, that is natural sunlight, fools.