Our 16th Anniversary
My wife and I celebrate our 16th anniversary this weekend. We’ve only been married for six, but we like to say our anniversary is when we started dating because neither of us ever really wanted to get married. About year six we started saying things like “if we make it ten, we’ll consider it”. I proposed on our tenth anniversary. We had a quiet little personal ceremony and got on with it. I like to joke that it’s been at least five happy years, but in reality it’s been 16 pretty solid good years give or take a few bumpy patches. I usually just refer to Ginny as my better half. Although a term of endearment, it’s mostly true. We’re a good team for a bunch of reasons. We often put that to the test on the tennis court as a mixed doubles team. Most folks scoff at us playing together because they always say “I can’t play with my husband/wife”. There’s some truth to it and we’ve spent some long rides silent rides home after losing in tennis tournaments. Last week while we were out playing, a friend came across our court and said “can y’all do me a favor and not ride your bikes by our house because my wife always says look how they do everything together”. We do do everything together and it’s been our M.O. (modus operandi) since day one.
We met during the second week of a class at the College of Charleston. I’ve got a couple years on her because I had dropped out and returned to college. I asked her for her phone number just ‘in case I missed class’. I knew what I was doing. She wasn’t sitting right beside me. In her words, the reason I got her phone number is because she had actually come to class ‘dressed’ for another date. The class was late in the afternoon. It was the History of Landscape Design. We still very much like landscape design and working in the yard. I even quizzed her on some of the material from our college class the other night in bed while watching a house design show. We both got A’s in that class, but she claims she had a slightly higher average. This photo is from my textbook with her name misspelled in my handwriting. It’s the only textbook from college I saved.
I casually asked if she’d like to join me for dinner after class and she obliged. In retrospect, she always said that she was just trying to shake off several other boyfriends she had at the time and I’ve never doubted it for a minute. Our first date was at a sushi restaurant. Aside from her intelligence and natural beauty, I was really struck by one particular quality… her sense of humor. I legitimately found her funny, whereas I had previously always just kinda faked my response to gals attempts at being clever or funny trying to get laid. She is smart tough and could out drink me. We used to eat and drink. We would drink several bottles of wine at dinner and then go out for drinks. I remember another one of our other first dates where we were completely inebriated. While we were leaving a bar on King Street in Charleston, another fella said something to her and next thing I know she was mouthing off about ‘**cking him up’. I’ve always respected that kind of independent mindedness and she retains that same spirit today.
We set our anniversary date as a reference to our first weekender. I randomly picked up a couple flights to New York and we did it up big city style. We ate and drank our way around town for a couple of days. I was trying to impress her and I think it worked. I think after that hangover wore off, we knew we were hitched. We split our time between my house up in the country and her carriage house downtown. We finished college and graduate school while we continued dating. I ended up taking a job back near her childhood home in Augusta SC and we moved into her parents home temporarily until we found our own place. I’d recommend that to anyone seriously dating. Go live in their childhood home with their parents if you want to see if it’ll work. As much as some folks may frown upon it, I also recommend living with one another. I said to a somewhat conservative and religious mom recently that her college age son should live with his girlfriend long before they get married. He appreciated it, but her… not so much. We spent our first several years living on a small farm taking care of a garden, horses, and chickens. We’ve since gone suburban and we’re considering a blend of the two for our next move. Every time we’ve pack up for a new move, it kinda feels like we’re college age kids moving in again. We’ve applied that team approach to most everything we do.
After ten years of dating, and even though I’d always said that I wasn’t the marrying type, I formally committed. It’s turned out to to be the best move I’ve ever made. Ginny has been nothing but supportive and encouraging. Her personality balances mine out perfectly. We often find ourselves talking about that balance. We got married in a private ceremony at an Episcopal church because we really liked our pastor at the time and we saved the money we would have spent on a big wedding ceremony. And although our honeymoon plans were to return to Charleston and fly up to New York we ended up skipping the big city just to stay holed up in a downtown carriage house. Anytime we ever need to feel like college kids again, we just pack up the bikes and head down to Charleston to eat and drink.
We’ve had our life challenges just like everyone else does and we’ve managed to handle them in stride. The real parts of life will just creep up on you when you’re not looking. Life and death happen. We’ve supported each other at every turn. We’ve never wanted kids but we have joked about adopting a disadvantaged older child to help them financially and emotionally with college in return for a bit of assistance in old age. I’m not sure you’d want to put that on an adoption form. We’re currently taking care of the last of our three original dogs. Zeke will turn 18 years old in January if he can make it that long. We’ve got aging parents and one last grandparent on her final stretch. The strength of our bond has made all of those challenging experiences much more rewarding.
After 16 years, we now like to joke about middle age and getting old. We often say to other folks that we are the ‘oldest young people’ you know. Our habits are more akin to retirees then middle aged folks. She called me ‘chubs’ the other day on the tennis court and couldn’t keep from laughing. I’m under 190, so it’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but my hair is greying and I’d need to lose about 20 pounds to be where I was when we met. She put on her graduation dress the other night to show it off, so I’ll try to cut back on the carbs this winter. Aside from health goals, we’ve also been working out some long term financial and life planning. We’ve been handling this whole covid mess in stride cooking every meal at home, doing home improvement projects, going for bike rides, and playing tennis together. I feel like we have a slight advantage to other folks out there because we’ve always done everything together. We try to keep our heads up high out of any nonsense and future focused. We know where we want to be and how to get there. I’ve enjoyed the first 16. I cherish every day and hope for many more. I’m confident we’ll go wherever we’d like with a little bit of teamwork and I wouldn’t have been able to do any of it without her.