Seriously married

Conversation over coffee this morning:

Me:  Was yesterday the 31st or the 24th?

Husband:  The 31st.  The 24th was a week ago.

Me:  Then today is the first of August.

Husband:  Yes.

So what’s so mind-boggling about this inane exchange?

Well, one hour later I remembered the 24th of July was our wedding anniversary.  Not only had both of us completely forgotten it.  We didn’t even recognize the date when we talked about it.

We do make a half-hearted attempt to remember.  But the date we really celebrate is February 14th because that’s the day we started to live together.

That was the day I decided I was making a serious commitment.

I did, I must admit, make something of a drama of it.  P arrived at my apartment from the hotel where he’d been staying with all his belongings stuffed into two suitcases.  We had a celebratory drink or two together, and then I began to get scared.  “I’m not sure you should stay,” I said.

P poured himself another drink and said he would sleep on the couch and leave in the morning.  I went into the kitchen and sat under the table.  Sitting under the table is not something I’d ever done, and why I crawled under there that night I can only speculate.

I guess I sat there for about half an hour.  I don’t remember much of what I was thinking, but at the end I’d decided that Peter was the only man I’d ever met I could contemplate being married to, and I would be a fool to run away now.

So in the end, it was I who had to persuade Peter to stay rather than to leave.

I realized today that I’d been living with him for more than half my life.

So I really did mean it when I said he should stay.