We’ve been married for 19 years now.
It’s difficult to believe, to be honest.
I believe that the lack of children in our home who share the central air conditioning contributes to the skepticism. I suppose we would be more aware of how much time has passed if we could see living, breathing reflections of all that time all around us. But we chose a career over having kids. We became friends right away when we first met in college because we shared a fervent interest in our respective fields of study. We studied together many nights in the radiant heating of our respective dorm rooms. We didn’t actually start to become more than friends until after college. In an effort to earn master’s degrees, we wound up attending the same university. We came to understand how much we contributed to one another’s lives at that point. I then resided off-campus in a one-bedroom apartment. I made an effort to win my wife over in this manner. I was definitely more of a geek at the time than a romantic. But in terms of romance, I think I did everything I could. I had a single mom when I was growing up, so I started cooking pretty young. I began inviting my current girlfriend to special dinners at my apartment. I probably lit 30 candles in an effort to keep the atmosphere romantic. While it was romantic, the HVAC system was almost suffocated. I kept doing this with every meal, not realizing that the air filter’s air flow was being reduced to almost nothing by the burnt wax. I eventually settled on checking the air filter because at one point the heat pump was running constantly. It had a wax coating all over it. I nearly destroyed that heat pump by romancing my wife.