10 Years

A decade is a period of ten years. The word is derived (via French) from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten.

That's what Wikipedia has to say on the matter anyway. I heart me some Wikipedia, but this left something to be desired today.

On October 7, 2010, Geoff and I will be married for 10 years, a full decade. Somehow that sounds like such a long time, but on the other hand doesn't seem long enough to accommodate all that's happened. Like any other living human beings, we've been through a lot in these 10 years. A lot.

We've been unemployed, disabled, nearly homeless, bankrupt, scrounging change from the couch cushions for a dinner of Ramen noodles broke. We've gone through applying to various government agencies for assistance (fruitlessly, I might add, as no matter how poor or disabled we were, it was never poor or disabled enough to get any help somehow...) We've clawed our way up from the upper-lower class to the lower-middle class (I think).

We've had countless arguments and some real screaming matches. We've threatened to call it quits a few times, and maybe almost meant it once or twice (but obviously not quite.) There are some things we will forever see differently. I think he's a slob. He thinks I hate all of his friends. We're both, at least partially, right.

We're different people than we were 15 years ago when we met, or 10 years ago when we married. We're very different people from each other - different personalities, different opinions, different wants and needs. We're each a testament to the fact that people do change - but only when and how they choose to change.

Nothing has really happened the way we had it planned. We were going to have a house and our first child after 5 years. It took us almost 8 years to get the house and almost 10 to have the child. We still aren't financially where we determined we wanted to be before having said child. Yet, we're getting by and so there you have it.

This week we've been... off. We had one of those roaring fights a few days ago. Neither of us has officially apologized, and we've been kind of tip-toeing around each other. There's a big ugly elephant in the room, and we haven't quite gotten around to giving him the shove off yet. He did bring me a flash drive shaped like a cat as a peace offering (that's our version of flowers and chocolates, you could say). Its head pops off to reveal the USB plug, which is a bit disturbing, but it's cool nonetheless. I bought him some almonds and didn't lace them with arsenic (harhar).

As bad as it all seemed at the time, and as angry and hurt as I was, I guess 10 years has taught me that... we'll survive. We'll deal with the elephant when he starts to stink up the place, and we'll move on. We have new challenges to face with parenthood, but we'll face them. We'll change more. We'll disagree. We'll fight. But we'll survive.

Because we choose to. Because we're in it for the long-haul. Because, ultimately, we're both stubborn and loyal as hell - and that's why this marriage, us, works.