Dear Elli,
This Sunday is our wedding anniversary. Our ninth anniversary. We have been together for a grand total of 13 years. If you want to practice your math skills, you will realize that is a long time. Especially these days and given my incredibly youthful age.
Today I want to tell you a story about your Daddy and me, and also tell you a few things about marriage along the way.
I was a senior in high school when we met. I had seen him around at parties before we actually met, but I was afraid to talk to him. He was super hot. On fire, really. And I was way too cool to risk being rejected by such a perfect specimen of a man. (I was really just a giant insecure dork, but I will choose to tell this story how I want. It's my freaking story after all.)
So one day he talked to me. ME! Ha! Can you freaking believe it?! He said..."Hey, Girl, what's your name?". I'm not joking. That's what he said. I nearly fainted. He called me "Girl", which in the year 2000 was a clear indication that he thought I was hot. Yes, I'm serious.
The rest is history, really. By the time I started college, we were living together. Oh, the SCANDAL! Living in sin! Give me a break. We slept in separate beds and never even touched each other until our wedding night. (I'm lying.)
We were quite the pair back then. He was the classic bad boy and I was something stuck between the honor roll and the county jail. We had matching eyebrow rings. We were freaking awesome.
We were a team. And we still are.
As we slowly got our shit together, your Daddy worked two jobs mopping floors while I went to school full time and worked at night selling credit cards via telephone. It was great! In fact, he can still mop a mean floor and I could still probably sell a credit card to some poor bastard with a 500 credit score. (The goal was to get the application, not get it approved. Approval was somebody else's problem. And I never purposely called the hood and spit the words "platinum plus" to boost my commission. Never. And I'm lying again.)
Anyway, after I graduated we got married. In Vegas. On June 2, 2004. It was awesome! I was 22 and your Daddy was 26. Just babies, really.
So then we came home and soon switched roles. I started my career while Daddy went to school. It kind of sucked sometimes because he nearly had a mental breakdown if he got anything less than an "A" and I had to proofread everything and re-learn advanced math so I could check his homework and OMFG don't let me miss a wrong answer because that was going to be the end of the freaking WORLD!
Thank God he graduated with like a 3.9999 GPA and started a career that does not include a mop or advanced math homework.
A short time later (which was 5 years after we got married), we had you. And our lives changed forever! Because now we are not just Chris and Jenn, but Daddy and Mommy and Elli!
Wow. So that was the abbreviated version of our relationship so far. I left a few things out, as you might guess.
I left out the bad parts. The fights, the heartache, the frustration, and the tears.
You see, marriage is beautiful, but it's not all pretty all the time. Sometimes it is ugly. Your Daddy and I have said and done things that we shouldn't have over the years.
In fact, in my younger days I was a huge fan of flipping over the coffee table and shouting filthy expletives at the poor man. (Now I'm too tired for that much excitement and I don't want to clean up the mess it creates). And he has been a proponent of going to the bedroom and falling asleep when I am in the middle of making a very important point...in a very loud voice. I'm not joking. Who the hell does that?
But in addition to fighting with each other, we've fought for each other. We've made it through tragedy and grief. Through heartache and incredible pain. When I've fallen apart, he has picked me up. When he has fallen apart, I've picked him up. That's what married people do. And when one of us starts to give up, the other fights harder to keep this thing going. Because that is what we do.
Sometimes this journey we call marriage is not cute. It's not always what little girls dream of. It's messy, and complicated, and heart wrenching, and frustrating at times. But it is also comforting, and easy, and fun, and really great more often than not. And that's really what counts.
As you grow, you will undoubtedly continue to see both the beautiful and the ugly sides of our marriage. That's OK. Because this isn't a fairy tale. This is life. And I have no intention of teaching you that marriage is supposed to be perfect. It's not. Because I'm a damn mess sometimes, and so is your Daddy. And that's OK.
And at the end of the day, I have a partner in crime. Someone who I can rely on to handle both my strengths and weaknesses, my sudden mood swings, and my frequent outbursts of extreme sarcasm. And he has someone to listen to his ridiculous rants about trivial topics and his obsession with whatever is his latest hobby.
Nothing is promised in this world, Baby Girl, including marriage. But I can tell you with conviction that it is worth the risk. The good times are great and the bad times are dark, but it's worth it. There has been no greater feeling in my life than building a life with your Daddy. I'm proud of our life. And I'm proud of all of us. And I'm proud that your Daddy and I have been married for 9 whole years without the police being called even one time! That's awesome. (Especially considering how loud it must be to the neighbors when a coffee table is flipped over in a second floor apartment in the hood.) Amazing, really.
I love you, and I love your Daddy.
Mom
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