As good as it gets.

Today marks one decade since I married my best friend. Ten years. When you say it, it sounds like such a long time. But when you live it, it seems like a blink of an eye. What doesn't seem like such a blink of an eye is the 14 years (in May) since our first date. Looking back, we were so young!! But we certainly didn't think so. We went to see a movie (As Good As It Gets) and to get dinner at Miami Subs and Grill, which is no longer open. After that, I always knew I'd marry that boy. And I did, on March 1, 2002.
Ten years is long enough to amass a cache of good memories. The first few years were an adventure, sometimes full of trials, but it was through those trials that some of the best memories were made. Picking up and moving to Utah, for example, with little money, even less possessions, and off on our own was one of the best memories, and definitely one of the best decisions we made. I worked several really crappy jobs during those years Paul was attending BYU, even getting fired on (one) occasion. That night, having recently totalled our only car and having missed the last bus home because they kept me past my shift so they could fire me, I walked home on a cold dark October evening (it might have even been my birthday, as a matter of fact) not knowing how I was going to support us with no job and no car to go out to look for a new job. And so I didn't get a new one....until we had gone home for Christmas to buy a new car and driven back to Provo, running into a couple blizzards and many frozen solid roads along the way. We took that cross-county road trip a total of 5 times over those 3 years, and those trips are some more of my favorite memories. We drove mostly straight through, usually sleeping not in hotel rooms, but in our car in parking lots when we could drive no further. Once it was the parking lot of a rest stop in Wyoming where we had pulled over intending to wait a short time until the blizzard had let up a bit, but instead getting snowed in and having to wait for a snowplow to come in the morning.
It is those first years of struggling, though still having all we needed, that make me so appreciative of all we have now, and also have made me to feel that, for me, all the excess is unnecessary. Our first apartment in Provo was the biggest dump I'm sure I'll ever live in. The carpet was so old and dingy that our feet would turn black if we walked barefoot in the apartment. The bathroom was so tiny, with no where to store my things, and I frequently found spiders in the shower. Yet, I look back with fond thoughts of our time living in that particular place, with its beautiful mountain views and its location on the pretty, tree-lined streets of Provo. It was in such a great spot that we could walk almost anywhere we needed to go during those couple of months we didn't have a car, including to dinner the Thanksgiving we had no one to dine with. That year we walked a few blocks to the only restaurant that was open on Thanksgiving evening, a Chinese buffet.
I could probably write a whole book of the simple yet memorable experiences we had during those first, childless years. And now, though we no longer have the first two cars we owned, no longer have Paul's childhood full-sized bed that we slept on for the first 3+ years, or the ugly old blue couch, we now have so, so much more. We have a relationship that has developed over many years, one that has been tried and tested at times. We have two amazing boys who have made us into what I always longed to be, parents. Ours isn't a story rife with fancy, romantic moments. We just fell for each other flirting in the high school cafeteria. But our simplistic life together with our boys makes me happy. Paul accepts me for the crotchety gal that I generally am. He encourages me to try harder, to be better, but ultimately loves me in spite of my faults. And I love him in spite of his.
May the next decade be even better than the last....