Ten.

Ten years ago, I was eighteen years old. I was new to the state of New York, having moved to Long Island to take a job as a nanny. I’d been placed there with an agency.

Two weeks after I started that job, I was having a hard time finding a likeminded church. A friend from my home state of South Dakota encouraged me to go to New Jersey to the church she’d grown up in and where her family still attended. I didn’t think much about it until my friend’s mother called and invited me to come, attend worship, and spend the day with their family.

Awkward, but how can you say no to that?

So I went. I got lost on the way there more than once, lost again on the way home, had a great day with that family but swore I wouldn’t do it again. Being lost in the Bronx was a little more than this farm girl could handle.

Two weeks later, I received another invite. I went. I got lost. I met a cop in Queens who, despite living in New York City, did not know how to get to the bridge to get out of it.

But eventually, I got there.

And then…

I met a man. Tall, blonde, in a three piece suit, twenty-four and ever so confident, it was, well, “You’re too old” at first sight.

But then we all spent the day together. His family and I, all at his house for the day, and by the time I meandered around Long Island long enough to find my way home again, I made the “He’s perfect. Now I need to find someone like that… 5 years younger.”

But that was Sunday, and on Tuesday he called and asked me to have supper with him. Somewhere along the line I got over the (gasp!) six and a half year age gap, and now, ten years later, we’ve been married for nine and a half years and have six kids. We’ve owned two houses, moved eight times, and loved and laughed our way through ten years together.

Guess what? We even get to have a date tonight.

Happy ten years, my dearest Blaine. Ten.