While we’ll have been married 6 years on Sunday, today marks 9 years that we’ve been together. That also means we’ve been in Minnesota for 8 years, and as cliché as it always sounds, I really don’t know where all the time has gone.  Depending on which theory you might agree with, you basically become a new person every 7-10 years what with cells dying off and being replaced, and in some ways I find this to be very true. I’m not necessarily the same person I was when we first met.  Age and circumstance have matured me in some ways, and I suppose in many ways marriage and children have changed us as well.  At our core we remain the people we were when we first met, though.

Ah, when we first met. We technically first connected on MySpace and that’s where he asked me out.  We went out to lunch at a restaurant that he picked after asking a friend where he should take me, and it happened to be a place I really liked, but he didn’t really. At some point there was lettuce massaging, I think because at some point we talked about cows getting massages so the meat was tender… and then at another point we were talking about Follow That Bird (the Sesame Street movie) which led to our second date – the same day. I drove to his apartment after work and we stayed up most of the night watching random movies and went to work the next day and texted back and forth.

So it began.  6 months later I agreed to follow him to Minnesota, I think probably because I knew this was it. I don’t know how, either. It isn’t as though I had dated a lot previously to him, but everything sort of fell into place and each step seemed like a natural progression.  We still text and email throughout the day and we still have a mutual love of movies and randomness and don’t always “act our age.”  One of the joys of finding your person is that you’ll always have someone who accepts you for who you are, though, even your most annoying traits.  Sure, there are disagreements, but what else can you do but forgive the person you’ve chosen to be bound to for better or worse?  Nothing in life is simple or easy and perfection is nonexistent.

I hope the next 9 years of our lives are just as imperfect as the first 9.

*Our wedding details*