You’re Weird. & I Love You.

Are those not the perfect words for a 42nd anniversary card? That’s what I got from Joyce last week, and I keep seeing it on my desk and smiling to myself. So true. So typical. So perfect.

After four decades together, how could you not think your spouse is weird? After all you know about them…

And after all they know about you: your moods, your manipulations, your eccentricities, your likes and dislikes, your annoyances, your patterns, your stories, your reactions, your health problems, your history, your political biases, your worries, your hopes, and what you’re going to order on the menu before you even open it. How could they not think you are just…odd.

Even I think I’m strange. Actually, I’m the only one who really knows how unusual I am.

The second part of the card was, “& I love you.” Even though you’re weird, I accept you…I love you. I’ll put up with all that weirdness that is you. Or as Joyce put it in another card to me: “I don’t understand your specific kind of crazy, but I do admire your total commitment to it.”

Well, to me, that’s long-term living together. That’s what you get when you pair up with someone for several seasons of life. It’s an intimacy that can make you crazy. Or it’s an intimacy that can make it sweet.

Ours is sweet.