The Po Show

22

Ross and I have been together for 22 years today. It's the anniversary we celebrated before we got married, and though that anniversary superseded this one, but we still think of it as our anniversary as well. I call it the anniversary of our being a couple, but that's really just a euphemism for the anniversary of our having sex for the first time.

This morning I had a funny thought of us getting matching T-shirts that said, "Po and Ro: Doin' It Since 1985." But then, we're really not the matching T-shirt type.

Our anniversaries of the past few years all seemed fraught with meaning to me. Three years ago, it was our Parity Day, since we'd been together for 19 years and we were 19 years old when we hooked up, so we had been together for half of our lives. Two years ago, we had been together for 20 years. Our wedding anniversary last year marked 18 years, so I said that if our marriage had been a person, it would have been an adult. Also last year, I said that if our relationship had been a person, it would have been old enough to gamble and drink. Next year will be our 20th wedding anniversary, and I want to go to Amsterdam.

But I can't think of anything clever to say about 22. Now the years just pile on without metaphor, and that's perfectly okay. It's enough that by some cosmic miracle, we have beaten so many odds and stayed together long past the statistical average. It has much, much more to do with his goodness than mine, but we've both worked very hard. It helps that we like each other a lot, and enjoy almost all the same things. Almost all of our time together is devoted to family time, to thinking about the kids, but we do have the couple of hours after they go to bed each night, to be just us.

He's still the funniest person I know, the kindest person I know (other than my mother, but she's out of everybody's league), and I am blessed beyond words, in a non-theistic sense, that he sees fit to continue loving me.

Happy Anniversary, Ro.