On non-iversarys

Neither my husband nor I ever remember our anniversary. Is this telling? Does a couple that relies on one of their family members wishing them well on the date of their marriage, to remind them about their big day, pass for Happily Marrieds? Or should we be booking ourselves into counselling, tout suite? Its a tough call; six years on, how far we have walked, side by side. As I look at him, his face illuminated by his laptop while he types like a grumpy ballet accompanist across the table from me, I see the same face I saw the first moment he walked into my life. Give or take a few strands of hair... I'm sure he has changed, but I can't see it. But I see in myself nothing of the flighty, stroppy young thing I was when I blithely waltzed into that candlelit chapel to stand beside him. I feel like an entirely different being. I feel every cold winter shopping trip, every summer picnic, every argument about who does more laundry than whom, every moment he's looked straight through my carefully constructed facade and stared at my naked soul. And I don't wish any of them undone. Sometimes life is a garden, sometimes its a howling wilderness, but whatever the weather, he is the tree beside me. Which is what I've chosen instead of hearts and flowers. And its enough.