One Day Before The One Year Anniversary !!!

In some ways I feel like it has been 25 years since Susie and I were married.

Consider this, Susie and I started dating sometime October 2004. I moved out of my old house and into an apartment on Halloween Eve 2004. Susie, just prior to that, moved in with her brother. From October to January, about 3 months, we ran around from the beach, to Hurricane football games, to meeting each other's parents, to celebrating my birthday, to seeing Sunny (my sister) sing, to dancing at Independent Bar, to celebrating Christmas and New Years Eve together, and other things which would qualify as "just having fun".

Meanwhile, Susie's divorce was finalized and we began discussing getting married "someday" and maybe even having kids. Well, "someday" came sooner than we thought. On Jan. 27th 2005, we found out Susie was pregnant at around 5:30 pm to a resounding, impromptu, "Oh fuck!!!" from myself, followed by a great deal of tears and laughter. In that same moment, I decided to propose to Susie as I had planned to do within the next year.

From that point, Susie moved in with me almost immediately. The next day we went to the Zora Neale Hurston Festival and saw Isaac Hayes in concert. The "just having fun" all but stopped as we began planning our wedding, started well-pregnancy visits, and told everyone the news.

On February 14th, 2005, Valentines Day, we had seen our baby via ultrasound the first time. I proposed again to Susie that very same day with a ring by a lake on the lawns of Leu Gardens. I got on both knees, asked her to marry me, opened the box with the ring in it, and handed her the entire box. She laughed and I stayed on my knees not knowing when to get up. Finally, I think she told me to stand up. We spent that Valentines Day at Leu Gardens listening to jazz and walking around.

Susie was sick everyday for the next 2 or 3 months. It was awful!!!

On March 26th, after a month of planning and arguing with family about whether we would have a wedding or go to the courthouse and whether there should be extended family or just immediates, and whether my sister's pugs would be at the wedding, Susie and I were married in Miami. After a few days in the Keyes, it was back to work.

In April, Susie had her birthday which we celebrated at the beach with a rented convertible filled with flowers and balloons and a cake in the sand. We began plans to begin a tutoring business including submitting proposals and getting approvals to procede from the state licensing bureau and completed a website (www.geocities.com/raskincounselor/homeworkclub) for the same business which has yet to come to fruition I might add but is getting closer as we have gotten approval to obtain the needed occupational license.

In June, I developed what may have been a kidney stone and vertigo due to what was probably an inner-ear infection. Who knows, as it is gone now, but for one week I thought I may die and never even meet my baby. Susie had diagnosed me with Type II diabetes and the doctors thought it may have been a sympathy pregancy until finally doing an MRI revealing an "irritated kidney" which seemed to have passed a stone. All I know is, it hurt, whatever it was!!!

Susie and I also attended a "How to have a baby" class required by our doctor, which we promptly proceeded to skip the second day of. We also found out we were having a boy. Somewhere in here, I think it was June, Susie studied for and took the state licensure exam for mental health counselors and became a Licensed Mental Health Counselor.

Over the next 4 months, it was baby shower after baby shower ending with somewhere around 5 showers total including a big shower at Raskin Dance Studios filled with people Susie and I had never met or heard of giving us gifts, some very expensive. We also moved into a new apartment with all the stress of moving on top of Susie being quite pregnant and unable to do much.

Quickly, I prepared the apartment for our baby. Put the crib together and all the other crap you don't even know exists until you are having a baby. This while, unpacking boxes and moving furniture in our new apartment.

On September 15, 2005, Jack was born and the rest is entered in this blog already as the world became centered around the boy and the, alleged, "conspiracy" to make Susie and I crazy. One birth, colic, 4 teeth, and a cyst in the head later and here we are.

One year of marriage!!! If you can go through all of that, and all of the fear and sadness, and tears and laughter that comes with it, and somehow still feel as grounded and in love as Susie and I do together, than you know you've got a great marriage. I'm very lucky and, having never had an anniversary before, I'm feel like it's Christmas Eve the night before our big day.