Fifteen

One measure of a marriage is whether you look back on it from the perspective of many years and see a transformation.

Noel and I were married fifteen years ago today.  He was funny, a great writer, kind and caring.  I knew that we would share a passion for pop culture and deep thought for life.  I looked forward to a long life with my best friend.

Then everything began to change.  I became a college professor.  We moved to Arkansas.  Noel began to rise in his profession.  And most important, we decided to have a child.

I don't think we could have gotten as far in our careers if we hadn't had each other for support and second incomes. Those careers have produced some things that we're very proud of -- books, organizations, communities of interest, courses, essays, ongoing features, fan groups.  But what we never could have anticipated were the two lives we would bring into the world together.  Who could have thought that putting Noel and me together would add up to Archer and Cady Gray?  Their wonderfulness is far beyond the sum of the two of us.  And having them in our lives has changed us still further, all for the better.

The marriage is the start of it all, but it doesn't tell the whole story.  It persists underneath all the changes, all the growth, as the substrate in which they flourish.  What's most remarkable about the last fifteen years is how far they've brought us from where we started, in ways we never could have imagined.

Lucky town

Tomorrow is my fourteenth wedding anniversary.  On October 12, 1996, Noel and I got married, and remarkably our parents seemed happy about the event, despite our combined lack of marketable skills.  We just knew we wanted to be together.

Now there are two bubbly, energetic kids bouncing around the house.  Oh, there's a house, in a town where I have a job.  There's a two car garage with two cars in it.  There are all the trappings of settled life.  It's not as luxurious as many, but in so many ways it feels like a damn sight more than I deserve.

On beautiful fall evenings, with the Japanese maples blazing with color and the sunset filtering in through the windshield, I like to think about the little miracle of my life as I drive through town.  The careers that we have, just about exactly what we would have chosen if we had been designing our own jobs.  The children -- so astoundingly bright, so wonderfully happy, so achingly beautiful.

None of that is forever, of course.  It could all be taken away tomorrow.  But what unmerited good fortune -- what grace -- to have enjoyed it even for a moment.