Celebrate Good Times…Sometimes

When it comes to anniversaries, there are generally three types of couples. The first type is the people who will make sure they celebrate every single anniversary and probably add fancy things like cruises and parties on the big ones. The second doesn’t celebrate anniversaries at all, maybe because they’re grumpy or maybe because they’re part of a secret organization of an anti-happiness cult. (I haven’t met anyone who would fall into this category but then again, what do I really know about anti-happiness cults? Nothing.) Third are the couples who only celebrate the milestone anniversaries. (You know, 5, 10, 15 etc.) They save up all their celebratory feelings to unleash them only when they feel like it’s really necessary.

I think my husband and I fall into this last category.

We didn’t always though, and I think it’s probably the same case for many couples. I think it changes depending on what you have going on in your lives. I mean, I don’t know of anyone who didn’t celebrate their first wedding anniversary. I’m not saying they aren’t out there, but if any of the husbands I know ignored their first wedding anniversary, they’d probably be divorced before their second. The first one is special because it’s brand new. It’s the celebration and remembrance of the day, one whole year ago, that you promised your lives to each other. You’re most likely still in the honeymoon phase and don’t even want to stab your beloved when they leave the toilet seat up or chew with their mouths open. Yes, THAT’S how in love you still are. Things like that are still your partner’s “quirks” and not “the thing most likely to make me hold a pillow over their head if they don’t knock that shit off”. So you clearly still celebrate the love that you spent so much money and preparation on a short 365 days ago.

Once the baby factory is open for business, many more couples start to fall into the no celebration category. Once you start having kids, you quickly realize that things like fun, reasons to wear panty hose and hot meals are a vague memory. (Oh darn, you mean I don’t have to wear the soul sucking contraptions known as panty hose? What a shame! Sarcasm font.) Oh sure, we like to SAY that we will still have date nights in order to stay connected, but let’s face it, we’re both usually falling asleep by 10 PM. (Okay 9.) For us women, we’re more excited than we should be about the prospect of not having to shave our legs and being able to stay home in yoga pants and that really old t-shirt that is so comfortable but really not fit for any function outside of a trash dumpster. Not to mention that we own 9 pairs of yoga pants that have never seen the inside of a yoga studio. The closest they ever got was when we walked by a hot yoga session going on in the building next to the Cinnabon in the strip mall. (Hey, don’t judge. Raising kids requires A LOT of energy. Sometimes sugar and cinnamon and icing are that energy.)

During the kid phase, you might still manage to celebrate if by celebrate you mean run a background check on potential babysitters that are allowed to watch your precious progeny for two hours so that you and your husband can sit down to a meal that you actually get to eat while it’s still hot. (Oh, is this what real food tastes like? I had forgotten.) I don’t care if you’re my mother, sign the disclosure and sit down for your polygraph test! Yes, I realize that you successfully raised me but I’m also kind of a weirdo so I don’t really have a lot of confidence in your child rearing skills.

My husband and I had quite a few years of dinner-versaries and sadly, it wasn’t even a really nice place to eat. If you get too “frou-frou”, I’m probably not going to eat it. I’d like to say my taste buds are classically trained but mostly it’s just that I’m not culinarily adventurous. (Classically trained sounds less picky.)

“I don’t care if truffle oil is in right now, it’s weird. No, I don’t want an arugula and goat cheese salad. Do I want what? Cold soup? Why in the hell would I want cold soup? Isn’t the point of soup is that it’s hot? If you serve me cold soup it better be melting ice cream. You know what? Let’s just go to Applebee’s.”

And ta-da! Applebee’s became our go to place and it was perfect. We didn’t have to get too dressed up and we could even afford it during the “two kids in braces” phase of our lives. If we wanted to get a little wild, we might go to Olive Garden or Red Lobster. (Ooh…getting crazy now!)

Then, last year, we had a milestone anniversary. The entire year leading up to it we talked about how we would make it special from our usual chain restaurant celebrations…until said anniversary came and we were knee deep in preparations for putting our house on the market, something that was happening a mere three days later. Exhausted and achy from sanding, painting, fixing, scrubbing, polishing, and shining up the house and everything in a half mile radius, we barely mustered up the energy for a dinner out. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you where we ended up going to eat. The whole month preceding slapping that “For Sale!” sign on our home is still a blur to this day. I can’t even be sure we celebrated, how sad is that? Did we just skip the whole thing? Is that why I don’t remember? Whatever you do, don’t tell my husband that I don’t remember…Oh hi, honey! No, I didn’t forget that you read my blog. I was just kidding! Totally kidding. I absolutely remember our anniversary last year! SOOO special! Love you!

Okay, so we probably both had an epic fail in the marriage celebration department last year. It happens. I’m sure there are times that people have way too much on their plate that taking a moment for themselves just isn’t an option. Things much worse than exhaustion due to house selling reasons.

So what do you do? 

You make it up the next year. And you do it big. Like “the kids are spending the night at their grandparent’s house” BIG. Like, we can actually dress like adults and go to a fancy restaurant BIG. Like “We can dance around the house naked because there’s no one frigging here except us and the dog and the dog doesn’t care if we have our fur on or not!” BIG. Not that we’re dancing around naked in our house. But we TOTALLY COULD!!! If we weren’t so full from our fancy dinner…the one that we got to eat in one sitting, without having to get up and get anyone anything through the entire meal! (You know, sometimes it’s the small things that make me happy.) My biggest worry (other than the aforementioned dreaded panty hose) is that my husband and I don’t remember how to have a conversation that isn’t interrupted by our children 47 times in 30 minutes. Do we know how to talk to each other without children tattling on each other or making farting noises with their armpits? I don’t even know anymore but gosh darn it we’ll try!

And if that doesn’t work out, there’s always next year. Until then, where did I put my yoga pants?