Ten Years

Today is my tenth anniversary of being married to the Queen and as such, I took the day off of work. It's the right thing to do to spend some time with her. We did what we could to find some time together, and managed to have family watch Sassy Pants, the only one not in school already, so we could go out to lunch. 

Our original plan was to drop off Sassy Pants, eat lunch, and then come back for her, but when we dropped her off, we were informed by the Queen's grandparents that they had lots planned and we had better not come back soon. Ok, so we went to the Spaghetti Warehouse, a restaurant in West Tulsa where we had our rehearsal dinner ten years ago. That location was chosen at the time due to its proximity to the majority of the wedding party and where the church was in Sand Springs.

We had a very pleasant lunch, but were left with a lot of time, and since we were in West Tulsa, we were a bit too far from home to head back to Broken Arrow before going back to pick up Sassy Pants. So the Queen had the idea to go by Ann's Bakery where we had gotten our wedding cake. She thought maybe we could get a donut or pastry or something there, just because of where it was.

We walked in and they had cookies and pastries that looked really good. I asked out of curiosity if they had slices of wedding cake or something to buy since we'd gotten our wedding cake there and wanted to get a piece of cake. To our surprise, they have what they call bar cakes that are just two layer cake in a thin bar shape (hence the name, huh?). But they were reasonably priced so we got one for our evening. We also asked for a couple of chocolate dipped, peanut butter cookies. The girl behind the counter gave us a half dozen for the two we paid for. That was nice too.

There honestly wasn't much else for us to do, so we wasted a little more time wandering a local Wal-mart before we headed back to pick up the 4 year old. We did get fussed at since they weren't quite done making their cookies (which, by coincidence, were peanut butter cookies, but not dipped in chocolate). So we hung out for a little bit so they could finish their cookies, and we were also "encouraged" to bring her and the others back at some point so they could play again. Grandparents are funny that way.

We ended our evening with champagne, some wedding cake, some soft jazz, and talking about the last ten years (or twelve, if you count our courting). It's been a good ten years, and we look forward to many more. In an era of marriages crashing and burning, we're a testament to the solidity a marriage can actually be if you want it to be good. We've had our ups and downs; our agreements and disagreements; and what we've learned is that if two people are committed to each other and have a true desire to make their marriage work, it will. It's when people stop caring and have no desire to be together that it's over. 

But that caring has to be about the other person. One element you have to let go of is yourself. This isn't to say that you can't be yourself, and it also isn't to say that you lose your sense of self either. What it amounts to is a desire to make someone else happy. It's soret of like that saying that your parents and teachers drill into your head: if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. 

When it comes to marriage, that's about all it takes.