Who do you spend the most time with? It’s 2025, which means that on the 22nd of this month I will have known my husband for 25 years. Technically I’ve known him a little longer than the 22nd, still 25 years though. June 22, 2000 was our first date. The day we met in person…
Who do you spend the most time with?
It’s 2025, which means that on the 22nd of this month I will have known my husband for 25 years. Technically I’ve known him a little longer than the 22nd, still 25 years though. June 22, 2000 was our first date. The day we met in person for the first time. We met in the early days of online dating. As in, I had a profile on Love@AOL and it was free. He saw my profile and emailed me. Lots of emails and phone calls later and we had our first date. Twenty five years but married for only 12. Even though I knew in 2000 that I was going to marry him, it took us a while to actually make it legal. No worries. We’re married now and since we’re Catholic (and you know, love each other), we don’t really believe in divorce being an option. Not that there’s a divorceable thing happening now. Unless you count him making fun of Hamilton when he heard Guns & Ships from the other room and made fun of Daveed Diggs and his epic rapping. To be fair, he’s not a musical/theater person.
Josh is absolutely the person I spend the most time with. It’s just him and me (and the dogs and cats) every day.
So, in honor of our upcoming 25th anniversary, I thought I would share some pictures that represent our time together. I don’t know how he feels about his picture being shared here, so I found some pictures that will still work.
This was our book wall in our first apartment. We have way more books now. Like, a lot more. But this represents our almost weekly trips to Barnes & Noble and our time sitting together and reading. It could be sitting in the backyard, on the beach, at our campsite, our couches…we easily sit together reading when we can. We also watch movies together. We have a collection of movies that we bought on Prime that are our favorites to watch together. Of course, I have my chick-flick favorites and he has, well, Predator. Tombstone is one of our favorites. I had actually never seen it until he made me watch it. So, we watch movies and buy each other fun t-shirts like this Doc Holliday one he got me for Christmas one year. Except for one, he and I spent time together at my races. He would pin my bib on me…straight. Hard to do it yourself, so he always made sure mine was neatly pinned on. He would also be my paparazzi as I ran by so I’d have good pictures to share afterwards. We have meals together. When there’s a special occasion, we break out a tablecloth and fancy cloth napkins. After his mom passed, these meals became for just the two of us. Some might look at this and think it’s a waste for just two people. Maybe a tableful of guests would make such a place setting necessary but these meals are special, even if just for us. This was the setting for our Christmas meal a couple years ago. For holidays, I help him in the kitchen doing whatever he needs me to do and then we enjoy the meal together. We go fun places. We’ve camped in various places and have had memorable experiences on those trips. We’ve taken lots of day trips and other longer trips. This is one particular place I made him go. I’ve written before about the Mt. Olive pickle drop on New Year’s Eve. This was it. At “midnight” the pickle dropped into the pickle jar. Midnight in Mt. Olive was actually 7:00 pm. So after we left and drove the hour back home we still had time to usher in the real New Years. This is another event he went to. He was by my side as I suffered through grad school. Even though I had already quit my job before I actually finished my degree, he came to my graduation and was my paparazzi once again as I walked across the stage. Having him with me through all of that is the reason I survived it in the first place. Finally, because he’s the one I spend the most time with, he’s here to do things for me, like wrapping my new tattoos with fresh plastic. I’m going to especially need him when I get my shoulder and upper arm worked on again soon.
Sometimes I worry about how much I depend on my husband. I feel so cheesy saying he’s my “rock”. It’s kind of cringey when I hear people say that. But, he really is. After 25 years together, my life is so intertwined with his that all the time I spend with him feels like that’s just how life is supposed to be. Him and I together. That’s how it goes. That’s what feels right. Natural. My worry comes from my fear that something will happen to him and he won’t be here. But, fears over the future only take away from the present. So until there’s actually something to worry about, I will enjoy his presence.
As a P.S., I asked him and he says it’s ok to post a picture of him. With that said, I’ll conclude by saying that my hope is that all of you get to experience a person who looks at you like Josh did on our wedding day 12 years ago and still looks at me like this daily.
I love this. Neil is my favorite person to spend time with. We are also always together. And don’t worry, the next time a version of this prompt comes up…cuz you know it will, lol, the subject matter will be him
Middle-aged Maverick is indeed middle-aged and she’s proud of it. She has a tendency to over think and over analyze many of the things she encounters in her life, as evidenced in many of her posts. She knows how to drive a stick-shift car, prefers Coke over Pepsi, and spent many of her adolescent years being obsessed with Jim Carrey.
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