a little bit of bourbon

Today is our anniversary. Five years of being married. It really doesn't seem that long; time goes by so fast. Shawn and I started our relationship when I was fourteen years old, in ninth grade. After that, we broke up and got back together probably a dozen times. Some of them were short breakups and only took a little cooling off to work through. Some were longer. During one of the longer breakups, between my nineteenth and twenty-second year, I actually had another fairly longterm relationship with a guy named Tony. Shawn dated other people too. Throughout most of the time we weren't a couple, we were still friends. Sometimes very close, sometimes only in touch occasionally.

When Shawn asked me to marry him, it was completely unexpected. We were living together in a little house I had purchased by myself, but which he had helped me select. He had his own room and was living down the hall from me. We were living somewhat separate lives, sort of like roommates. We'd agreed not to bring other people home to the house to avoid making each other uncomfortable, and we'd begun to slip back into being a couple without really having any kind of spoken commitment. We were grocery shopping together, which seems about as together as people can be.

One evening, just as I was on my way out for drinks with some girlfriends, Shawn said he wanted to show me something. He said he'd "picked up a couple of things" for me. These were things I'd been mumbling about needing. He had a grocery bag and unpacked his gifts on the table for me: garbage bags... toothpaste... light bulbs.... oh, and an engagement ring. I was totally stunned. Totally taken off guard. I burst into tears, and let him put the ring on me, and then went out for beers without even answering him.

When I got home he was in his bedroom. I climbed into his bed with him and told him I would marry him. And that seems like it all happened just moments ago.

Now we've been married five years and spent three out of five anniversaries apart! In 2005 he was in Montreal. In 2006 I was in Kenya. And now, 2007, he's in Vancouver. The apart times have always been difficult. But the together times have always been sweet.

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