This month my husband and I are celebrating our eighth anniversary -- safely and well beyond the Seven Year Itch. We have a good marriage, and much to celebrate.
What makes it work? I don’t know -- luck, probably.
Or maybe it’s because it resembles, more than the relationships I’ve had with some men, the neglected, yet deeply important bond I shared with my childhood best friend.
It’s Jenny -- not Jim, Joe, Jack, John, or Jasper -- who gave me a sense of what is possible in love (minus, as they say, one thing).
1. Conversation before, during, and after school
As teenagers in a suburban Connecticut town in the seventies, Jenny and I were completely baffled, often quite amused, and sometimes horrified by what we saw around us. What could we do about it? Not much -- except we could talk.
Talking is how we made sense of things: seventies-style foibles, marriages gone awry, a school full of aliens from outer space.
We laid out plans for the future, we contemplated the Essential Truth of Jim Morrison (and Jim Morrison’s leather pants); we talked about poetry, mascara, and everything in between. Words were our currency, and with them, we remade the world.
My husband and I also remake the world through talking. Our world has gotten a little wider, perhaps, but we still analyze and discuss the heck out of it to make sense of the thing.
We’ve got certain spots for certain kinds of discussion: the Big Topics often require the chairs in the living room, the Tense Topics are done on the fly (room to room, too hot to sit for long), and the Fun Topics are done during dinner prep.
At lunch, we talk about the news of the day. And at night we talk about all manner of subjects (though he’s currently wary of revealing important new plans to me at this juncture, for once or twice my ever-lengthening silences have turned into sleep.)
Soon after we met, I told my future husband that I wished we could take a train together, a long journey, so we could just talk and talk and talk. He smiled at me. He said he likes trains, too.
And he didn’t have to tell me he likes to talk. A few months later we rode our first train together, a dream come true, two very chatty people in seats 2A and 2B.
2. A whole bunch of sleepovers
They were about time, of course. Time to talk (definitely), and time just to hang out. And also my sleepovers with Jenny re-energized the most basic routines of life.
A slight bore on its own, brushing my teeth became incredibly fun when we were doing it together, when a toothpaste glob had trickled down her chin, and we were nearly dying of toothpaste asphyxiation while laughing and doing a chicken dance in our Lanz of Salzburg nightgowns.
When my husband goes away, I realize how simply having company for all the mundane and everyday chores (going to Home Depot, making dinner, taking plates out of the dishwasher) makes each thing a lot more fun.
Not that I always appreciate it -- it’s an embarrassment of riches, now. Do I get worked up with joy over going to Home Depot to pick up a new mop head? Not totally. But were we to do the chicken dance in the parking lot . . .
3. A second pirate in the Caribbean
A few months before we got engaged, I was applying for an important job. Right before the interview, my husband said: “Okay, so listen. Helen Keller once said: ‘Life is either a grand adventure or nothing at all.’ So go get ‘em, honey. You’re going to do great.”
I got the job, but more significantly I got the concept. I like to think of this marriage as a grand adventure. Yes, we’ve got the Home Depot runs and the domesticity, but the fact is, ever since I met my husband, I’ve had a conviction that our life together is full of possibility.
It’s a feeling I remember from high school, when Jenny would look over at me, we’d lock devilish stares, and then go out and do some incredibly stupid thing. But fun thing, usually.
We gave each other chutzpa. We said yes to galloping our horses down the road at top speed, yes to the next party, yes to skipping algebra. Yes, most of all, to life.
Next - Steps 4-10
Aurelie Sheehan is the author of the short story collection Jack Kerouac Is Pregnant and the novel The Anxiety of Everyday Objects.
The director of the creative writing program at the University of Arizona, she has received a Pushcart Prize, a Camargo Fellowship, and the Jack Kerouac Literary Award. She lives in Tucson with her husband and daughter.
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