To my husband:
Reflecting on our ninth year of marriage, the title “Comfy Pant Lovin’” seems apropos because more than any year before it seems that we are comfily settling into our life. That in no way means that this has been a lazy or uneventful year, but just that we have reached that wonderful place of getting cozy with our day-to-day.
In the early years of our marriage, we were moving and doing and trying to get places. New experiences moved us onward: graduate school, new jobs, new cities, new houses, beginnings & ends, pregnancies & babies and just trying to figure it all out. And a lot of that figuring out was still figuring us out. The new & improved us: the newlywed us, the moving us, the graduate student us, the new parents us, the homeowners us and all the transitional and what’s next us in between.
And here we are now. You and I are (though sometimes grudgingly) leaving behind many of our unnecessary notions of perfection. We are content with the clutter, our kids’ messy faces, unexpected crises (both big & small) and the never-quite-completed to-do lists. Okay, well, ‘content’ might not be an entirely accurate description, but at least we’re recognizing that there are more important things. Things like slipping on some comfy pants at the end of the day and just being together. So, maybe we’re too lazy for date nights. Maybe we’re not following the advice of experts on keeping a happy marriage. All I know is that whatever we’re doing (or not doing) is working out just fine because I love you more now than ever before.
When we were dating, there were two situations that gave me glimpses that we were destined for some comfy pant lovin.’ The first was outside that pool hall in Topeka that we used to go to. It was late and we were outside in the parking lot lingering over our goodnight, and you said “Your make-up looks beautiful tonight.” Over-the-moon in love, I told you, “I’m not wearing any make-up.” The look on your face! That look, it was like I could literally see you falling in love with me, unadorned, fresh-faced, late-at-night me.
The second situation was some cold evening when you came over to my house for dinner, and I had made tater-tot casserole. It was a simple dish I had grown up with and always loved. And there you were, this man (and I admit that at one time I thought perhaps you might be too sophisticated for me), and you just gobbled it up like it was one of the best meals you had ever had. At some point during that meal, I really knew that you were going to marry me, and I give credit where it is due to that humble, comfort food.
These two moments in a million, billion moments that we have shared stand out the most for me as proof that simply, purely, without make-up or pretention we would be together: happily wearing comfy pants, lying in bed bathed in the soft glow of television, trying not to get crumbs on the blankets and talking about everything & nothing as if for the first time and yet forever.
We’ve packed a lot of living into the last nine years. Now when I am driving the kids to or from one of their many activities, stirring dinner on the stove or carrying a laundry basket upstairs, I take a breath and think, “This is it. This is our life. We are doing this. And this… this is good.”
You, my love, are good. You work so hard every day to provide for us and tend to this life we have. You spend long days at the office and long hours at home all for the upkeep of our house & family. Thank you. I know that I don’t say it enough, but thank you, thank you, thank you. For more things than I could ever name, but most of all for the comfort you provide, the strength of your arms, the teasing in your smile and for loving me, all of me.
Here’s to nine years & more of knowing that at the end of the day we’ll slip on some comfy pants and feel deep in our souls that in that every day moment everything is as it should be because we are together. Happy Anniversary, Poopas! I love you!
