12/27 (#1)

These are the things people tell you about being married (and maybe the things you tell yourself, or at least the things you some time ago told yourself):

Granted, it’s coming from the same guy who just over 10 years later would tell Oprah,

As a (self-described!) fairly neurotic, over-working, curiosity junky, I can be “a lot.”

When I read the first Seinfeld quote, I imagine him describing me that way, and anybody else thinking, “Well, that’s just exhausting.” Like I’m one of those super hyper dogs you have to walk 15 miles a day or else they won’t let you sleep because they’ll be chewing up your sofa. I naturally vibrate at a higher frequency, and slow and low is not a mode I readily or regularly find myself in.

And yet, the second Seinfeld quote, almost needs to follow the first. Sure, one is in a sitcom and one is in an Oprah magazine interview, and they take place over a decade of LIFE apart, but, they’re beautiful bookends.

Marriage makes no sense, unless it’s to the right person.

As of this morning, I’ve got a year under my belt, officially. I don’t have any fresh wisdom. I can tell you that I’ve never been happier and can’t imagine my life any other way, but a Hallmark card could tell you that too.

Unlike the Hallmark card, I also am willing to admit just how little sense it all makes. If I think backwards, I can clearly see how every other relationship was obviously doomed. If I think forwards, I can crack a crystal ball over how this will never happen again. I mean, the sheer odds of it, man. And I don’t even mean if there’s anybody else I’d want to see everyday. I’m (almost) equally concerned with anybody else wanting to be around me every day. Even my dog has various beds around the house. He’s my best friend and he needs space from me.

But what I can’t get over, what baffles me in the best of ways, is the incredible comfort of the commitment to companionship marriage has brought me.

We did the vows. We said the things. We meant the things. We cried over them. We’ll continue to celebrate and renew them.

There’s still the morning coffee. The afternoon reunion. The nightly read in bed while I fall asleep and she laughs at me because I try to keep going even though I’m already nodding off two or three times. Those are the commitments. They were there before, and they continue forward, as magical as they are habitual, all because of the companionship.

From Jerry, with Oprah, again—I feel like I could have written this:

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

It’s the best kind of a best friend, the greatest companion I’ve ever had, the best commitment I’ve ever made.

To my wonderful Valle, happy anniversary.

To us.

To “good air.”