Blog Entry: Anniversary and romance
Six years ago, on August 7th 2004, Patrick and I got married. We were married in Leeds, where we were living at the time, at the same Unitarian chapel where Joseph Priestley (the discoverer of oxygen) had preached a couple hundred years earlier. We signed our names in the old wedding register there, for people to see two hundred years from now. We wrote the ceremony ourselves, and afterwards we had our wedding reception in the 18th-century schoolroom just across the road from our house.
Friends of ours catered the reception with fabulous Indian curries as their (incredibly generous) wedding present. We ate ice cream (both dairy and vegan) and traditional British wedding fruitcake, vegan-ified, for dessert. Our dog Nika was meant to stay in our house across the street, but she couldn't resist the party - she darted straight through someone's legs, across the (luckily empty) street, and ended up staying and partying with all the rest of us, much to the delight of all the dog-crazy little kids who were in attendance. The music mix alternated between heavy metal (Patrick's pick) and opera/girl-pop (mine).
It was fun and silly and totally awesome. It was quite literally the best day of my life up to that point.
Over the last six years, there have been a lot of ups and some really horrible downs. Our lovely Nika died far too young, of a really cruel genetic disorder; people we loved died; I was diagnosed with CFS, changing both of our lives in ways that we'd never anticipated. There were times that we were absolutely terrified about how we would cope financially, and that was hard - really, grindingly hard.
Through it all, though, what made all the difference was that no matter what came up for either of us, we were each facing it by the side of our very best friend.
I'm always baffled by the people who think that romance is unrealistic, as a genre - that romantic happy endings are simply too good to be true. I don't believe that for an instant.
Yes, life can be very hard. Relationships can be hard work. Quite often, they turn out not to be work-able at all, and divorces are agonizingly painful for everybody concerned, even when they're the right decision.
Quite often, though, our relationships really are the best part of our lives. I grew up surrounded by happy long-term marriages, marriages that brightened and bettered people's lives, despite any hard points that came up along the way. Not everyone finds the partner who fits them, and of course no one needs a loving husband/wife/partner to be happy. But it is one of the biggest strokes of luck in the world when you do find the partner who suits you to the ground.
I am so happy to have married my best friend. Happy anniversary, sweetheart!
And to everybody else: what are your favorite romances, in books or movies? I'm in the mood to hunt some down right now. :)