Number Eight

Two thousand nine hundred and twenty-one.

That is how many days Shaun and I have almost been married. This Wednesday marks our 8th wedding anniversary and our 10th year together.

My grandmother.

I know its a weird place to start with an anniversary post but it'll make sense in a moment, at least I think it will. Since I had Sullivan, I think about her more often than I have in a very long time. She would love the little guy to pieces. But that isn't where I'm really going with this right now. Back on track, Steph.

My fondest memories of my Grandma Alice were sitting on her red swing that was outside of her house. Its where she would share stories about my grandfather and her family. She really loved my grandfather who had passed away years prior, but that love was always really apparent in her stories. The way she would shake her head and laugh as she told these stories.

I'm learning there were life lessons that I took away then that would carry me through. Like the importance of embracing and passing down our stories. She would spend hours telling me these stories about her childhood, about my grandfather, the depression, growing up as a farmers daughter or about her mother that she never really knew. Over and over again I would hear these stories - most of them I can recount by heart, even now.

We all have a story.

Since Sullivan arrived into the picture, I'm realizing how important sharing these stories are. They are the foundation of who we were, who we are and who we will become. Late at night, when the world is sleeping and I'm cuddled in tight with my boy, I share these stories. And while in some obscure way they play into a bigger picture of his life, they are not his stories. His story begins with Shaun and I.

Ten years is a long ways to dig down and go back. Its time to start putting pen to paper, so one day, he can look back on how his story began.

Putting even a glimpse of "our" story out there is unsettling at times. Its hard sometimes for me even to articulate my thoughts to Shaun about how I feel. Its been the source of many-a-argument at times between us. But I want Sullivan to know how much I love Shaun, I want the world to know how much both of my boys mean to me.

And even though I know he knows ... I want Shaun to know how much Shaun means to me.

Three thousand six hundred and fifty-two days, give or take some days.

That is how long ago this story began.

Just 19 years old, but even then, I knew. He kissed the top of my forehead, and I knew. Every girl knows when they've found the one. Ten years later, and I still get the butterflies.

Ten years ago, he gave up everything to move back to Cali, on nothing more than a hunch and a crush on a nineteen year old girl for the sake of a chance after a whirlwind two week vacation. An honest-to-god chance to make it work. I guess it worked.

He was the cute, svelte boy with the Cheshire grin and his daddy's beat up Ford Ranger that towered over me. He had a goatee, played the guitar and could make me laugh. He still can make me laugh like nobody else. (By the way, that truck eventually caught fire on the side of the freeway and I don't think he's picked up that guitar since we got married. Well played Mr. Curtis, well played.)

A year later we found ourselves in a little apartment with our cat Pacha and a dinky pink futon couch. We ate ramen, counted pennies and listened to our Grateful-Dead lovin' roomate try to be the next big thing with his guitar singing songs about rainbows and friendship. Smoking the reefer every day will do that to you. I think back to that Shaun and Stephanie and I smile. I smile because there is something beautiful in the art of being young, struggling and making it to the other side.

The fact that I made it to the other side with him makes it all that more beautiful.

It seems like forever ago and yesterday all at once.

And a lifetime of memories have started to fill up all the spaces in between. Some good, some bad, but better for all of them regardless.

We've worked to get to where we are - in so many more ways than anyone will ever understand. We've battled and dug our heels down deep to keep this whole thing from diving over a cliff. We've changed, but we've done it together and we're better for it.

Shaun -

I think about "us" and I think about the time you took me up to the mountains in Utah and we hiked and saw my first moose and was assaulted by that chip-loving-semi-possessed chipmunk. I think about Vegas penny slots and free booze or the time we took off on a whim and ended up in San Fransisco. I think about that time we ate lunch in the back of the pickup truck along the shoreline in Malibu as the sun was settling in the sky and watched the abalone fisherman dive in the crashing waves. I think about walking along the streets of New Orleans as jazz music blazed out the bars and giving those kids a buck who tap danced for us in the middle of the road.

I think about mirror messages, midnight grocery shopping, and 10 hour lines in Hollywood to meet your idle. I think about sunsets at the beach, talking the nights away and watching countless sunrises because of it. I think about Smith's ice cream, the Dark Crystal and bringing Murphy home as a puppy. I think about the first time I stepped off that plane into a new country and you squeezed my hand, because you knew it was a long awaited dream coming true for me. I think about movie hopping and laughter and Denny's pancakes after concerts we're probably too old to still be going too. I think about landing in Tokyo and squeezing your hand because I knew it was a long awaited dream coming true for you.

I think about us and my mind goes back to that walk and the pouring rain that started down in Ireland and you standing there on the rocks of a creek - and when everyone turned around to go back and I stepped forward you smiled, held your hand out and said "That's my girl. You ain't 'gonna let a little rain stop us." And we walked and walked and walked in the rain - completely soaked as we trekked along the countryside on that little one car road talking about life and dreams and babies and we laughed and wiped the rain from our faces and laughed some more. And we laughed and cried two months later when we came home and found out that life and dreams and babies were happening, in 9 months to be exact.

And you. Shaun. You.

You've survived my short hair (like one step away from playing for the other teams short), indecisive nature, corny jokes and mental outbursts.

You are the guy who brings me home flowers just because, buys me a book instead of jewelry because you know I won't wear it anyways, messages nearly daily just to see how I am and lets me sleep in every Sunday. You're the guy who attempts to do laundry even though you know its probably "the wrong way", got me to finally kick the smoking habit and says its the sexiest thing ever when I name off the hockey players on the Kings. You're the guy who eats my crappy cooking and knows when I need a stiff drink. You're the guy who tells me I'm beautiful and asks for kisses even when I haven't showered in a day and my hair is a rats nest on top of my head with day old makeup smeared on my eyes and I'm wearing sweat pants with chalk stains all over them and that shirt you hate with all the holes in it that also happens to have the afternoon's lunch on it and my feet are black because I just spent the last 45 minutes sitting in a dirt pile with our toddler ... and you just smile, and say shut up, and demand and hug and say "I'll take you however I can get you."

Butterflies.

You're the kind of guy who sits outside my office at 9 at night because you don't want me there alone. The kind of guy that says "we" and "our" instead of "mine" and "yours" - like when you assured me through tears my infertility issues were really our infertility issues. You're my number one advocate and have supported every single decision I've made, right or wrong, over the years. You push me to toe the line, and remind me there isn't anything wrong with staying in touch with my inner child. You love attributes most would see as a hindrance in people, like my stubborn or "scrappy" nature as you put it.

And loving you only got easier during and after Sully.

For every pregnancy appointment you never missed; for every song you sang to my belly; for every night you ran out in your pj's at 3 am to feed a hungry beast awaiting at home; for agreeing that my hippo feet were indeed actually terrifying. For coming out in your tight scrubs and dancing to calm my nerves, whispering a song in my ear moments before our son arrived - for seeing that look on your face the first time you saw your son's face.

The face of joy, and excitement, and fear, and happiness and wonder - and love. For every diaper you've happily changed, every bath you've ever given and the majority of nights to do bedtimes so I can have a few moments of peace.

And when you scoop Sully up into your arms and tip him upside down and kiss him - and he lets out a ginormous belly laugh - and you proudly declare "I FREAKIN' LOVE THIS KID! He's the BEST thing ever!" ...

There is no place I could or would imagine being other than here.

Here -

Here listening to you sing children songs while he dances, naming off his hot wheel cars or demanding he eats his banana as he throws it as you.

And I want you to know it was worth it. It was all worth it. To be here in these moments, with you, after all this time. To have shared all these experiences with you, to be sharing all these moments with you now. This is his story, and one day he'll make his own because of us.

I think back to where I was almost 8 years ago, and for the most part, that day is a blur. But I can hear myself telling my dad I have to pee as we round the corner and him telling me I'll just have to pee myself then - because the bagpiper in front of us has started to wail away already, and its marching us down that path. A unknown path of unmarked territory, and I'm scared shitless, and I'm weak in the knees and I'm not sure if I want to cry or run.

And then I see you standing there. And I see your face. And I can see us.

And two thousand nine hundred and twenty-one days later my feet continue to carry me down a unknown path of unmarked territories, head first with you, working and struggling and changing and supporting and creating this thing we call our life.

It's our story.

And I love our story.