Six years ago, on this very day (tomorrow)...

Hi honey. Tomorrow is our anniversary, but since we'll be in Bellingham celebrating your mom's birthday, I thought I'd write this today.

Six years of marriage. Apparently, the sixth anniversary gift should be candy, at least traditionally. The modern gift is iron, but you already have several shot puts and I bought you a hammer (against my will) a couple of Christmases ago. Oddly enough, recommended sixth anniversary vacations are Hershey, PA and Walt Disney World, so I guess our upcoming vacation in WDW was meant to be, although I think the best evidence for that is the $60 hotel room price we all got.

I was thinking about our marriage the other day, and I got kind of giggly. That's seems to be my usual response when thinking of us. I giggle like I'm twelve and the boy I like just looked at me, except I'm 34 and the boy I like lives with me and I get to wake up with him every day. The comment I always hear about the two of us as a couple is that we seem made for each other, and I think that's because we're always laughing. It's kind of a miracle that, considering how easy it is for me to lose perspective on, well, everything and become so anxious and clamped down, laughter is such the predominant theme in our marriage that I can't think of us without chuckling, but in a happy, non-Mr. Burns, non-demoniacal kind of way. I don't know how you've managed to turn me into this person who not only laughs all the time but who can laugh about things I used to cry over. That's practically a miracle.

We've both grown a lot in the last year. We each took new jobs, causing our income to plummet. However, you never let the money be a factor in your insistence that I work only half time so I can sing and not want to fling myself off the roof of our house in sheer dramatic exhaustion. You've become so handy, even more so than you were before, and good Lord, am I grateful. I love that you're so competent around the house that all I have to do is ask you to auger the bathtub and it's done. You seem to take great pleasure in being "the man of the house," and I'm shocked that I don't mind. Well, not really. I like the fact that, despite what I say to the contrary at 1 am when we've been hanging shelves all day, you simply MUST screw everything into a stud. When that inevitable earthquake comes, that picture of our house on the bird room wall won't budge. Of course, I also like that I can put together furniture and such and you let me do it without standing to one side with a beer in your hand criticizing how I used your drill.

One thing that happened this last year, though, really defines for me what our marriage is, and what makes it my lifeline. I had slowly been becoming resistant to my anxiety medication, and I was putting off going to the doctor. We were getting ready for bed one night and I was particularly ornery and unwilling to put away laundry, and, while most other people would get upset or argue in the same situation, you looked at me and said, very calmly, that you could tell that I was much more anxious and upset than when my medication was working, and that you were going to harass me until I went to the doctor because you hated to see me so unhappy. You were right, and I knew you were right, and I finally went to the doctor because you wanted me to. It's funny how sometimes that's what it takes for me to do things I know I have to do. I won't do them for myself, but I'll do them for you. I'd do anything for you.

I love you, sweetie. Happy anniversary.