The Best Four (Plus Three) Years

18 Jun 2015

Today is our fourth wedding anniversary, which means that we have been together for seven years. Woot! I love watching those numbers tick up, as the time I’ve spent with Eric starts slowly eclipsing the time I’ve spent without him. I won’t mince words: he is basically the best person ever, never failing to make me laugh, to intellectually engage me, to support every little thing I endeavor to do, to feed our baby in the middle of the night, and to make just about everything unreasonably fun. This is our first anniversary as parents, and we are sort of bleary-eyed and need to spend this anniversary eve baby-proofing our living room, but my oh my, this right here: it is all I ever dreamed of. I have been thinking today about the things we’ve seen and done and been through together, and I thought it might be fun to take a little walk down photographic memory lane. Also, I am silently laughing because Eric is sitting right next to me at the table eating blackberries and reading the New York Times and has no idea I am writing this post, and this, again, is all I ever dreamed of. Love is wonderful when it’s grand and romantic, but I think it’s even better in the sweet moments of the everyday. Here is an abbreviated and illustrated cheat sheet of the last seven happy years.

2008: Two book-loving grad students meet in Berkeley, discover that they go to the same church, and begin to spend every waking moment together. One grad student writes scientific papers while the other teaches literature.

2009: One grad student jets off to the wilds of New Mexico for three months to launch a stratospheric balloon. The other grad student reads an awful lot of Turgenev for her dissertation. There is much rejoicing upon his return.

2010: One grad student jets off to the wilds of Australia for three months to launch a stratospheric balloon. The other grad student teaches Russian. There is much rejoicing upon his return. So much rejoicing, in fact, that it is punctuated by an engagement ring. More rejoicing ensues!

2011: Two book-loving grad students go on the academic job market, file their dissertations, get married, and move to Pasadena. Big year!

2012: Two book-loving nerds do lots of cooking and traveling and reading. Much fun is had by all.

2013: Two book-loving nerds do more cooking, traveling, reading, and…learn that a new little book-lover is on the way!

2014: Two book-loving nerds welcome a tiny angel into the world and spend the rest of the year sleeping on the couch, making bottles, changing diapers, and being blissfully happy.