I’m writing this on my 25th wedding anniversary, hoping to be finished with all my deadlines today in time to go eat somewhere.
It’s hard to believe we’ve been married that long. Plus, we dated three years beforehand.
I’m sure some people thought it would never last.
He was the laid-back skinny guy wearing hand-me-down shoes and a sailboat belt who sat at the desk next to me at the first newspaper I ever worked for, and he made me laugh.
I was the Type A, flirty, fickle, fashion-conscious girl who talked too much.
It was not love at first sight. Or even second or 50th sight. He really wasn’t my type.
One time I helped him decide which of three women we worked with to take to a concert after I turned him down.
After a long night at the office, he invited me to his apartment, and for some reason, I said OK. We talked until the wee hours, and there were no awkward pauses.
When I had a serious car wreck coming back from a meeting I covered for the newspaper, he was by my side every time I woke up in the hospital.
He asked me on April Fool’s Day to get married, perfect for a man whose favorite accessory at the time was Groucho glasses.
I remember someone saying, ominously, “You never really know someone till you live with him.”
I kept waiting for some big reveal, but it never came.
We didn’t have much of an adjustment, although it dawned on me the first few weeks that he was never going “home.” He was home.
Fast forward 25 years and two kids later.
He fixes my coffee and breakfast every morning and always says something like, “You look great. What do you weigh, about 90 pounds?”
He didn’t say a word when I ballooned up to 190 pounds when I was pregnant with our second son. Oh, yeah, the son he helped birth, by the way, in the front seat of the car.
He still weighs about the same as he did at our wedding.
We have had lots of happy times and, like everyone, some heart-breaking ones.
I learned that it sends him over the edge if I leave the refrigerator door open. It annoys him when I sit in the driveway talking on my phone with the vehicle running. He knows I hate it when he scrapes his ice cream bowl. When he gets hungry, he gets irritable. He doesn’t turn into Betty White, but Snickers is one of his favorite candy bars.
I realized that he is my perfect type — smart, funny, dependable and trustworthy. And willing to put up with me, which is the best quality of all. (And all the relatives said, “Amen.”)
It doesn’t really matter where we go tonight; we enjoy being together. We can still talk until the wee hours. At least, I think we could if we could stay awake past 11.
It’s crazy to think that I now have been married for more than half my life. I’m up for at least another 25, if he is.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.