The Shiori Between My 40 and 7

Yes, I will explain.  Today is December ninth.  It is the bookmark between the seventh, my birthday, and the eleventh, our anniversary.  In Japanese the word for bookmark is shiori.  Shiori is also the name of my best friends daughter ... and my best friends birthday is the 11th. The lady who made my wedding dress so I could get married on her birthday :)

So now that I have explained let me actually tell you what I have been pondering.  I turned 40 two days ago.  It wasn't depressing in so many words; just another day really.  I worked; I lived; I pondered. After two days of stewing I have come to the conclusion that I just don't care about being 40.  No trauma.  My friend Austin actually told me that the 40's were the best decade of his life.  That is when he had his kids, truly found and understood himself, and started teaching grad school, for which I am eternally grateful.  I am already pretty comfortable in my skin, but I am looking forward to finding what life has in store for the next several years.

The best gift I got this year?  A new chance at life.  A diagnoses I can LIVE with.  So for that I am happy and blessed.

Two days from now I will celebrate our 7th anniversary with my Douglas.  I cannot imagine a more wonderful spouse.  My marriage has been bliss, yes sometimes blessed boredom, but oh how I have reveled in it.  I love Doug more than I ever dreamed it was possible to love another person.  And I will spare you the rest of the twitterpatedishness.  I was told that the crazy lovestruck feelings would cease after a year or so, but honestly mine haven't.  I will not deny I esteem him highly ;)  He is my bestest friend, second only to Christ, and despite being a man he understands me most of the time ... and the other times are why I have girl friends to keep me sane.

NO, life has not been easy this seven years.  We have struggled at every turn.  We have been both middle-class /comfortable, and poverty stricken/barely surviving.  We have lived in homes, apartments, and trailers.  We have struggled profoundly to have kids.  We have suffered in ways that no couple should have to, but Doug has always held my hand, kissed my forehead, let me cry until I had nothing left in me, laughed with me until we cried and he has loved me with the fierce devotion that  only a true man of God can possess. I know you love me friends, but I honestly do not deserve him ... but I will keep him nonetheless.  After all he is the only person I know that can sing 80's hair metal songs in Kermit the Frog's voice ... I will admit that Enter Sandman was unbelievably hysterical.  

There is no one else I could imagine or desire to spend the rest of my life with.  Happy I have him forever.  So that is what I am thinking on the 9th  ... the shiori of my December.