for our tenth wedding anniversary my husband and I got food poisoning.
I’m still pretty upset but I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and tbh I don’t hate this concept as much as I did when we left the restaurant.
When you know someone for a long time, and you go through Some Stuff together a number of times, things like getting food poisoning on your tenth wedding anniversary is sort of like
any other day.
The special days are special because special things happen, not because the date scheduled a stand-out importance, you know? our tenth anniversary is absolutely a massive milestone to be recognized! But we’re at a point where any day can be as special as any landmark date.
Last week we went to the riverside beach on a Wednesday. I haven’t seen my spouse look so relaxed in months. The water was cool and and we stood in the river and looked at the clouds and I was happy to be alive. He couldn’t stop flirting with me and i felt so fuckin pretty. I did some plein air painting on the beach while a cannabeverage worked its magic.
It was just a random weekday trip, but it was spent with him, and it was one of the most beautiful days in my life. No fanciness whatsoever. Walmart water shoes, fried chicken from home, strawberries, chips and horrible shelf-stable dip, and the experience of returning a beach stand burger because they forgot to cook it.
One of the best days of my fucking life.
So do you see what I mean?
When you spend so much time with a person, dates sorta stop carrying the weight they used to. You stop putting significance on days as a number in a specific order. You start to put significance on the days that hit different, the ones that feel special, the ones where you watch yourself fall in love with that person over and over.
So last night, grieving our horrible meal and punishment for our poor choice of eating there, faced with the depressing fact that we were food poisoned for our tenth anniversary, we sat on the couch playing bathroom relay, and while the cannabis worked to settle our bellies, we laughed to the point of tears philosophizing about the Pixar Cars universe. The fact that car pope implies car crucifixion, which implies car Roman Empire, which implies car Caligula. There are tiny Volkswagens, what are they pollinating? The controversial car discourse about car Adam and car Eve and how it is a concept being dethroned by the discovery of the first wheel. The evolutionary path where some wheels evolved to be mills and other wheels evolved to be chariots, and the cartholic concept of fully-formed Italian cars being the birth of car existence.
It was so great lmao
This is marriage, if you do it right, if you’re lucky.
You can spend an important number day like your tenth wedding anniversary writing a bitter restaurant review on the toilet, relay racing between the couch and the bathroom, and talking about bullshit meme philosophy while replenishing fluids and waiting for the Imodium to kick in. And despite all those miserable activities, you still have a good time.
Because even the shittiest days feel kind of okay when you’re with your favorite person. Our wedding anniversary wasn’t “ruined.” My risotto was ruined. His pieuvre grillé was ruined. Our relationship with the restaurant was ruined. But our day wasn’t ruined. We spent it together, and we spent it laughing.
The tenth wedding anniversary material is tin, describing the resilience, durability, and flexibility of the relationship, and i think last night was a perfect lived example to why that is.
Marriage is a safe haven, my darling. And love? Love? Love is something else. It's the weather being good every day, because wind and rain are just another kind of good weather. That's love.
I think about this quote a lot. At this point I think about it on at least a weekly basis. It’s from a mother figure in the 2005 film Casanova, explaining how love can dramatically change your perception of the world, and how even when shit gets bad you are weirdly able to find the good because love sort of makes you stupid (affectionate.)
My husband and I were food poisoned for our tenth wedding anniversary, and it was just another kind of good weather.