and you guessed it, we kept that up for awhile... he said that it built up the suspense ( but don't ask him now because he has himself winning on the third date we all know though that I have the better memory). Three weeks into dating we realized that we knew each other as children.... and the tune to X-files played in the background... no literally we were watching X-files we did that every Sunday evening at his apartment followed by my beating his pants off at Tetris worlds repeatedly. He took me shopping on State St in Madison for my birthday that first year and got me the most incredible outfit that I have ever owned. He told me it was because he liked my style so much and it reminded him of me. It cost him well over one hundred dollars and I know because I looked at the outfit and realized that each peice was sold separately and not one peice was less than fourty dollars, some were much more and it is a three peice outfit.The first time he told me he loved me I ignored him all together... because I didn't know what to say. Later that night he said it again... and I told him that I didn't know what to say. We left it at that... but the next day it bothered me so much I had to leave early to go and tell him that I loved him too. We moved in together in October of that year... and we were children all the time. We would race each other up to our third floor apartment. He cheated everytime... because I was faster I would get ahead of him and he would simply pick me up and put me at the bottom of the short flight of stairs we were on. We were spontaneous and carefree. He asked me to marry him when we had been together a year... before I had met anyone in his family. We finally got married four years later.So is 8 years a long time or a blink of an eye. Sometimes it seems like it has been both. A lot has happened in those eight years. We have had some of the best moments two people can have in a lifetime... we have had some of the worst. We have triumphed together and celebrated... we have failed and supported. We have faced tragedy and we have turned our backs to the world to wait out the storm together. We are best friends... we are at times worst enemies. We fight, we make up, we fight again. We try to figure out what it is that we want most in the world and how to get there together.
There is no doubt that we have had trials in our lives together. We have mourned the death of not one but two babies and a miscarriage together. We have mourned the loss of his two boys through other means. We have celebrated the safe birth of our daughter and we have shared the joys of watching her grow. We are in the midst of surviving a difficult pregnancy for our second daughter... and we are trying like hell to keep it all together. These trial have changed us both. In some ways for the better... and in some ways for the worse. We are still both of us pulling our way out of the pit that we fell into together when our world started crumbling four years ago. We are trying to help each other. And while it seems that the successful birth of a child would have wiped those pages clean it does not. Not really. It gives us something to smile at now... but it does not erase the pain that is indelibly marked on our hearts for the loss of four children in a year and a half and it does not change the uphill battle we have to put our lives piece by piece back together. But we work every day at making a move in a positive direction.
We have grown Dave and I. Not always in the same direction but we seem to find our way back to that same direction. He is unquestionably my best friend in the world. He makes me laugh when there doesn't seem to be a thing to laugh at. He helps me to stay centered and tries like hell to help me to shrug off worry. I keep him on a forward moving path and interject a little bit or reality at times when he doesn't want to be troubled with the details. He spends all the money until it is gone and can't be worried by the consequences. I budget for the future and rail at him when he spends away my budget. He always makes plenty of room for fun... and lets the chips fall where they may. I am always seeing things that need to be done... and am frustrated when I am not able to get it all done and then pissed at him because he is having fun. He is sure that it will work out somehow, it always does. I am constantly working to make sure that it does work out. He shrugs off worry and guilt as worthless emotions. I am kept up at night and stopped from eating by both emotions on a regular basis. With so many opposites it makes you wonder how we work at all. But the thing is that while we approach nearly everything from absolutely different angles... we help each other to see the validity of the other persons approach.
For the last couple of years Dave and I have been struggling with those differences. And it only got worse when a child was introduced into it all. The 19 months that Ash has been with us have been the toughest in our relationship... as we grapple with the new roles that we have to play and the seeming imbalance that children cause in a relationship. We have had fights from hell. We have both threatened to leave. We have discussed separation. We have both rejected the idea only to start the whole cycle over again with the fights from hell. But one thing always becomes clear to us.... WE DON'T WANT TO BE APART. So we rebuild, reconnect, and remember. We remember what it is that we like and love about each other. We remember what life was like before we felt like our souls were soaked in misery. We remember that once the labels of mother, father, husband, wife, breadwinner and homemaker fall away we are Dave and Melissa... best friends.
Dave's stepmother Donna once said to me, " There is such a sweetness in David under the surface, just be careful of that." The truth in that statement is so deep it cannot be touched. There is a sweetness in Dave. There is that little boy wanting nothing more than to please the person that he holds dear. He hides it well. He is cocky and arrogant or gruff and grumpy depending on which protective method he thinks will work the best. But in the 8 years I have been with him I have seen that sweetness come out and it awes me every time. He is a man of great depth, for all that he tries to appear simple. He is an amazing individual and it is that man that I love and have married. It is that man that I use to remember why I am where I am and with whom I am with. There is little question that it is not always easy to be his wife. In fact it is very difficult at times... but I wouldn't change it, not really. And when I am not contemplating setting him on fire.... I would walk through fire for him! So here is looking at another fifty years, and looking back and saying "Wow we made it!"
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