Keeping track of what matters - Celebrating 10 years with Outdoor Guy

I woke up to a card at my place at the family table.  It was a card from my husband, on our 10 year anniversary.  He was up and gone early this morning, moving pheasants from one pen to another before the day got too hot.  I frantically searched for the perfect card I had bought six weeks ago to give him at lunch but couldn’t find it.

Which is entirely appropriate for our marriage.

I sort of wander through life losing and finding things, a small trail of detritus left in my wake.  I lose cards, grocery lists and the car keys more times than I care to admit.  Outdoor Guy is much more fastidious and methodical.  But together, somehow, we make it work.  I think it’s because we love each other not in spite of our flaws, but because of them.  He can be rigid and unyielding and so certain of his beliefs that sometimes I just want to stomp on his foot.  But that same dogged determination and certainty is what makes me feel safe and protected and absolutely secure in his love.  And I can be disorganized and chaotic but I remember the little things that matter, like that he only likes Skippy Natural Peanut Butter, that he hates surprise parties and that he once helped raise an elk calf named Maynerd.  He grounds me.  And I like to think I’ve encouraged him to spread his wings and fly a little bit.

So what does a decade together look like, by the numbers?

• It’s surviving the death of one of our parents.
• It’s one really, really bad batch of raspberry chicken salad and a pinky promise never to make that recipe again.
• It’s holding each other and grieving together after two miscarriages.
• It’s finding a way to give each other space to mourn the loss of two dogs, each of which came into our lives before we met.
• It’s three moves to three different counties in Wyoming.  Three new homes, dozens of new friends and countless things we miss about the old place.
• It’s vacations to three different states to fish, snorkel and gamble (he actually wore jeans on Waikiki beach).
• It’s a dozen nights in the kitchen, dancing to George Strait on the blue tooth.
• It’s approximately 15 incidents of opening the freezer to find some weird critter in it (like a whole pheasant rooster for the warden to use later).
• It’s nine 4th of Julys shaking my head in wonder as my husband practically skips down the aisle of the fireworks store in excitement, and knowing he has ultimately passed on pyro ways to our daughter.
• It’s enduring 40 weeks of a grueling pregnancy together.  Outdoor Guy held my hand (and my hair) the entire step of the way, from me throwing up so much I had to be hospitalized twice to him giving me medications through an IV port the doctors had to put in my chest to keep me hydrated and alive.
• It’s 40+ homemade banana cream pies made with my secret ingredient (lard, not love, in case you were wondering)
• It’s 60+ pairs of 13MWZ Wrangler jeans bought, worn, laundered and thrown away in the name of raising fish and raising pheasants.
• It’s watching Tombstone, Spaceballs or Blazing Saddles for the 100th time and not being annoyed when the other one keeps quoting lines the rest of the night.
• It’s 1500 loads of laundry scratching my head at all the ways he can get covered in poop, blood, grease and grime.  And sometimes feathers.
• It’s 76 different funny ways to sign texts, like “Chesty LaRue” or “Sexy Britches” just to make the other smile.
• It’s 120 nights of “money date nights” where we pay bills, check receipts and plan our retirement together.
• It’s weeks and weeks of him getting my car out of the garage and letting it warm up so I didn’t have to.
• And it’s 3,652 nights falling asleep thanking the universe that I get to call him my husband.

Our love isn’t epic.  It’s not stand in the middle of a rainstorm pledging our love to each other while an 80s song blares in the background.  It is solid, steady and quiet and the bedrock of my soul.

Thanks for the best decade of my life Ben Milner.  Here’s to the next chapter in our lives and another ten years of ups, downs and love.  You are without a doubt the best thing I’ve ever had come into my life, and as long as we live, I’ll never lose you.

Teresa

Photo credit: Rugged Grace Photography, Kelly Groenweg