The Beginning of Denver Schmenver

Our one-year anniversary is in two weeks. We haven't killed each other this past year, not for lack of trying or wanting some days. We still love each other, and we are even pondering starting the child-creating process before my 35-year old ovaries actually shrivel and fall out of me on to the sidewalk. So all of that is good.

I never wanted to get married until I did want to, which came after five years of relationshiphood down some pretty rocky paths with P. We saw each other through a lot and managed to figure it all out despite our debilitating differences and our respective inclinations be so opinionated that we can't even stand to be in the same room with ourselves sometimes. The five years we made it through before our wedding day seemed like such a big deal at the time.  However, now, with the rest of forever staring us in the face and the prospect of kids and more dogs and more undone chores and hurt feelings and bouts of moodiness and forced in-law visits, and snowshoeing (I have tried all your damn sports, and I HATE snowshoeing. There is no Colorado law that says you have to like it! Stop trying to make me go!) five years seems like a minuscule accomplishment.  

This blog will be written and maintained under a pseudonym. The facts are:

• I am a professional writer, and I live in Denver, Colorado.
• I will be 35 this summer and am on the brink of finishing off my last package of birth control pills.
• I love my husband with every ounce of who I am, except when he is being an idiot, at which point several ounces of me are reserved for disdain, sarcasm, criticism, and sometimes unintentional meanness. But through all of this, I love him deeply, and he loves me back.
• Marriage is hard. Relationships with family and friends are hard. Deciding to have children and thereby combusting your current lifestyles into tiny pieces of former freedoms is hard, too.  But they are also all very, very funny. 

I am keeping this anonymous for now so that I can experiment with my own honesty.  I have been writing for other people for my whole life. This is mine.  And yours to enjoy and join in on the adventure if you wish. 

A few weeks after we got married, I would drive to and from work through quaint Denver neighborhoods, and I would look at cute houses with For Sales signs and think, "I'll get a house like that when I get divorced"  And I would even look to see if there was a big yard for my dogs. 

"Oh, nice, that privacy fence will come in handy when I am laying in my bikini in the backyard."
"This is a good school district. I might be a single mom at that point, so I gotta be prepared"
"Ooh, automatic sprinkler system.  Perfect."

I do not know if that is normal behavior. But that is what I did regularly for the first few months I was married, the reality and legality of the commitment apparently settling in at an odd angle. I feel better now, though.

Honesty experiment one: complete. That felt decent.   

Join me, won't you?