10 Years in List Form

On July 7, 2003, I met my best friend and the love of my life.

That evening, I happened to be wearing my bright red sneakers, which J admired. The shoes have since fallen apart, but J will not let me throw them out.

We went to Graeter's Ice Cream. J ordered black raspberry chip at my suggestion, and we sat on the patio and talked until the ice cream was a melty memory and the sun had gone down.

J told me about how he once accidentally got into a drunken street fight, about how he drove a car over a cliff and how he, the passengers, and the car all lived to tell the tale, and about how he got hit with a running chainsaw to the chest on his second day as a tree surgeon's assistant.

We spent some time talking about how the chainsaw injury had misaligned his nipples, but that the misplaced one seemed to be moving back toward its proper spot. He thought it might be a good experiment to draw an X-Y axis on his chest to determine if and how much his nipple was returning to its home over time.

The next day, I emailed my best friend to tell her I'd met the man I was going to marry, and his name was J.

Five years later, I did marry him.

A lot has happened in the past ten years. I was trying to come up with a way to sum up this wonderful journey, when J suggested I put it in list form. It feels fitting.

Over the last ten years, J and I have shared:

• 7 jobs (5 mine, 2 his)
• 5 apartments (3 mine, 1 his, 1 shared)
• 2 houses
• 9 cars (5 mine, 4 his, which is ridiculous considering the fact that he's the car guy)
• 3½ cats (the half is the kitten I took in for two weeks but found another home for)
• 1 dog (because Obie is the greatest dog in the world)
• 4 funerals
• enough weddings that we've lost count
• 1 moonbounce-tastic wedding with a bluegrass band playing the Hora
• 1.6 children (we're the ones skewing the census numbers!)
• 4 vacations
• 3 Indianapolis 500s
• 2 Moto GP Races
• countless road trips
• innumerable friends
• laughter
• tragedies
• conversations
• meals
• 1 life together

Friends have sometimes wondered why I was able to remember the exact date when J and I met. It was a random weekday. There are so many facts, figures, and dates to fill one's head. Why can I keep track of this one?

I can remember the date because it was the most important day of my life, as much as I may not have realized it at the time.

That sort of thing leaves an impression.


(Note to J: Don't worry, this does NOT mean that I expect you to remember the date. I know that kind of thing is one of the reasons why you keep me around.)