Thursday, August 6, 2009

10

Long time readers (hello-ooo-oooo? Anyone still there??) may recall that my wedding anniversary is this month. Tomorrow, in fact. Ten years.

Which means that yesterday was another anniversary of a date that never was. And I'm just realizing I didn't spend any time yesterday thinking about the baby who wasn't here, who might have turned two yesterday in another universe, though in yet another universe we might have celebrated a birth followed, at some point, by a death due to the myriad of problems this baby would have had, had he survived to be born.

Two years is some sort of a marker in grief time. Far enough out that it's become an event of the past. Life has changed and other events have overtaken.

Last year, during this week, I was a mess. A weepy mess, a pregnant woman who took to her bed not from any doctor's orders, but just from crushing pain. One year out and crying every day, multiple times a day, beaten down but not yet out. It's hard now to remember it all, to remember the intensity. Two years out is a different place.

I bought a card. We're going out to dinner tomorrow night. I wonder what he will want tomorrow to mean. How am I supposed to view this anniversary? I rejected so many cards. I swear this has to be a business model for simple cards that just say Happy Anniversary and not much else. That skip the poem and flowery crap. Even in the best of circumstances I'm a pretty straightforward gal. And these still aren't the best of circumstances.

We honeymooned in Nova Scotia. Given various family schedules, we sort of had to schedule the wedding for August, even though I dreaded the heat. So we wanted a honeymoon someplace new, different, that was a little cool. It was a great vacation, and we talked about how fun it would be to repeat it for our tenth year. Earlier this summer, actually, my husband brought that up, but it was just impossible given finances, obligations, kids. Maybe someday we'll go back.

Where was your honeymoon? If you've been married that long, did you do anything special for ten years?


10 comments:

JW Moxie said...

Jo is still posting. She seems to be doing pretty good and oddly coincidental to this post of yours, seems to be in a bit of a "honeymoon" phase with Mo. Hopefully it will last. You can delete this part of the comment later. I can post a comment on her blog to let her know that you'd like to still read along and need an invite.

Happy almost anniversary, for what it's worth. This year is better than last and I hope that next year is better than this one.

All that I specifically remember about our 10th anniversary was that something cycle-related happened on that day, like I had a lining check or started started Lupron or something along those lines. I remember we joked over dinner (where, I can't remember) that because I was in the No Nookie phase, we couldn't even have celebratory anniversary sex.

For our honeymoon, we spent a week on Jekyll Island here in Georgia.

Am I doing okay? said...

I'm still reading. Is it presumptious of me to assume I'm a long time reader?

Happy Anniversary! Our 10 year is next May and I'm hoping we'll do something BIG - maybe Hawaii?? For our honeymoon we did a cross-country road trip CA to NYC & back. Hitting every spot that tickled our fancy: Dollywood, Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame, Niagara Falls, etc and eloped in my husband's hometown in VT.

We drove to Nova Scotia when Lula was 6 wks old. Seems crazy to me now. But it was a beautiful and fun trip.

I'm happy for you!

Pancy Fants said...

Happy Anniversary; again, for what it's worth. It is in accomplishment for sure. Our 10th is this December, we're going to a B&B in Amish Country- just to do something. We have never done anything for anniversaries before, so we thought that just doing "something" for our 10th would be big in itself. We honeymooned in my family's cabin up in Twin Peaks California (we used to live near the Pacific coast and now we live near the Atlantic)- we spent a whole week doing nothing but hiking, playing the old games stored there, and tending to the fireplace and each other. It was really nice.
I've been reading for a while, but you don't know me- so I'm deciding to just be presumptuous by adding a comment. :)

Louise said...

I'm still reading too. I should really comment more often, because I know how you feel - I am going through the worst time right now, could really use some support, but I get at most, two comments on a post.

SORRY DIDN'T MEAN TO HAVE A PITY PARTY HERE.

Anyway. We've only been married for three years. We lived in Nova Scotia for the first four years of our relationship (good choice of honeymoon spot!), then moved here to PEI. My husband had to go to work like, two days after our wedding, plus his parents were staying at our house for the week before and the two weeks after the wedding (their idea, not ours - yeah I've got inlaw issues), so we just went to a hotel about 20 minutes away from our house, and came home during the day to entertain them. We're hoping to go somewhere special for our 5th, without the inlaws tagging along.

Whoo! Wrote a novel! Sorry!

Tash said...

Aww hon. Remembering with you, and thinking of you, and sorry this is all a bit bittersweet(bitter). I'm always a believer in going in with seriously low expectations so that anything remotely better is bonus with chocolate sauce. But that's me.

Long/short, we simply got in the car and drove to Cape May for 4 days after our wedding thinking this was the transitional Honeymoon, and that we'd go somewhere BIG and FANCY when we were less tired/stressed. We actually mostly slept, and no, that's not a euphemism. A year later we decided to go to Italy to a cooking school for our Honeymoon, and did -- a week to the day after 9/11. Planes were empty, Europe was empty, but we were there with some other Americans and wound up chatting with Americans everywhere we went and all in all it was a beautiful and cathartic trip.

My parents honeymooned in Nova Scotia (I think).

Lisse said...

Honeymoon in Nove Scotia and PEI. Some camping involved.

10 year anniversary in Italy.

Now we have kids and a renovated house to pay for and we won't be travelling anywhere exotic for a long time to come.

Happy Anniversary.

k@lakly said...

Happy Anniversary. I hope the next 10 are a different and more peaceful journey.
Thinking of you as you remember all that could have been and think about all that is yet to be.

Jo said...

I'm still here, WhichBox, though not as frequently. I had to turn in my laptop when I took a new job, so posting/blogging/reading time has been greatly decreased while I wait for a new one.

I have time this morning (duh), so I will send you an invite.

Thinking of you,
Jo

Unknown said...

Hi WB -- We had our 10th last summer ('08) with four days on Nantucket, which was wonderful though kind of expensive, so we wouldn't have done it if we'd known that hub would get laid off six months later... our honeymoon (paid for by father-in-law) was the BEST -- two weeks all over Israel plus Jordan, in nice hotels, tour guides, etc. I don't see any more fancy getaways like that for a while...

Mj said...

I was sent towards your blog by the folks behind Stirrup Queens back when I realized my marriage was going south in a serious way. After trying to save it for a long time, I am close to finalizing the divorce. I hope. I haven't read your whole history, but I, too, honeymooned in Nova Scotia. It was beautiful. We kayaked Peggy's Cove and hiked with moose. I spent our 10th anniversary having a D&C for miscarriage #2, at 13 weeks, after going septic in a hotel room. Yuck. I look forward to reading more of your posts and wish you all the best.