13 Years

Somewhere after the 10th anniversary, an anniversary just becomes another anniversary. I can only equate it to after you turn 21...the excitement that comes with a birthday starts to wear off, and while you are excited that you made it another year, it just doesn't have the same pizzazz that the previous years brought. You no longer stress about what you are going to do to celebrate, what outfit you are going to wear, how you are going to remember it. It's just another day that has come too fast, with hardly enough time to remember what you did the previous 364 days before.

I knew that our anniversary was approaching, but with so much on our plate there way little time to properly prepare. I'm not sure I even shaved my legs. I had not yet bought a card to write the words that become cliche year after year. The older you get, I guess less is more. So I was completely caught off guard when Tony told me the night before that I should be ready by 1pm. On a school day? Yes please! True to form, Tony walked in the door at 12:55pm after working all morning to jump in the shower. Although I was packed, I figured that I had another 20 min to get fully prepared. (BTW, "fully prepared" does not mean shave my legs. It means getting enough paperwork done to truly feel that I could relax for 24 hours!) At 1:15pm I was still typing away frantically as he walked in the office yelling "I told you to be ready at 1pm! We have to go!" I became irritated, he was stressed out, we were off to a great (and typical) start!

After speeding for an hour and a half, I realized where we were headed. A place that I had passed hundreds of times on our way to Colorado but had never been. A place that I had always wanted to go! Ojo Caliente! We arrived 25 minutes past our appointment times and begged for them to still take us. As I prepared for my massage, my heart racing from the speed of the drive up, the stress of our lives and me being completely irritated with my groom for cutting it so close, I settled in and tried to relax. Oh great, I got a talker. Just as I was anticipating the ending of my hour long massage she poured hot oil on my scalp and all my cares melted away. I started to think that I had completely lost my mind and sense of time. How could I still be in this room? This is the longest massage of my entire life! This is life! God, I love Tony! A 2 1/2 hour massage was just what the doctor ordered!

By the time I floated out of the treatment room I had forgotten all of the reasons that I wanted to be single again. As I gazed out onto the scenery, I was overcome with gratefulness. To my husband of 13 years, my mother in law for watching the kids for the night and for enough work to pay for what I could only assume was adding up to be a very expensive trip! We sat in the hot springs, covered ourselves in mud to bake in the sun, ate a fantastic dinner and told campfire stories with new friends from far away places. It was truly a magical 24 hours to celebrate 13 years!