A Decade with Danny (aka Happy Anniversary to me, us.)

August 1, 2006 Danny Mangum and I married. Here are some thoughts I recorded last night before bed:

Ten years ago this evening I was trying to get myself to settle into bed, when I received a call from my fiancé’s mom.

“Have you heard from Danny?” She asked, in a panic.

“No why? Is everything ok?” I asked, mildly freaking out when she said, “He’s been jumped!”

My body went into a mild panic attack before I realized she meant that his friends had kidnapped him for one last night of guy-fun; but my brain had gone to worst-case-scenario regardless.

Fast forward ten years later. My husband is in the garage of my parent’s second home in Southern Utah, putting tie-downs on a bedframe we’re relocating to our place in Salt Lake (which also happens to be the house he grew up in) as I finish up a press release for work.

We spent three hours of the day at Mormon Church in St. George – which is often different than our Salt Lake experience. This “ward” we attend down here seems to always come with a few surprises… like today when the Relief Society teacher was talking about the current political and social climate declared: “It makes me just think we should all get our guns and our year supply and head up to the cabin in the mountains!” She also admitted to spending five hours on Candy Crush at some point, so I wasn’t sure we had loads in common.

This is the same place (ward) where almost 20 years ago a Sunday School teacher spent a good portion of his class trying to make the case that Cain and Bigfoot were the same person. So, I know I’m always in for a treat when we hit up church down here.

Aprés church, the afternoon was spent napping and watching a Harry Potter Marathon – because it’s his birthday weekend and all. Tomorrow we celebrate our family’s birthday – at a musical (Mary Poppins), in Cedar City. Though next month we head to Cancun, for celebrating just “us.”

In the ten years we’ve been married, we’ve lived downtown, and in (one of) the houses of my youth and the house of his. We’ve given birth to two awesome kids – now four and seven. We’ve traveled to Florida & France, Sun Valley & Switzerland; Mexico and Massachusetts, Hawaii and… plenty of other places.

We’ve lost grandparents, and watched our siblings struggle with really hard life experiences. We’ve struggled in our marriage, but found a way to fall in love deeper and stronger than ever before. We’ve looked for ways to understand one another and figured out how to better fill one another’s cups.

We’ve gone to yoga classes, and Crossfit and run races like Ragnar and half-marathons together. We’ve gotten chubby on plenty of occasions and on less of those occasions we’ve lost some weight too.

We’ve enjoyed amazing meals and friendships and laughed so hard it felt like our bodies had been possessed. (And it felt amazing).

We’ve talked about our dreams and fantasies… and some of those have been created into reality and some we’re still working on. We’ve played out various manners of the hypothetical and started to prepare for the worst, even though we’re really hoping for the best.

We’ve asked questions about the future, and the eternities – philosophy and religion. (Well, maybe one of us has asked more of those questions – but the other person has been super supportive of the whole process.)

Sure it’s cliché, but somehow the decade gone by seems like it was just a few months ago…and there’s another piece to the puzzle -- we that can’t remember life without one another.

Danny, you are the leveling force in my life. When I lose faith or hope, I always feel safe putting it in you until the storm passes. Thanks for your patience with me, loving me unconditionally and for starting the journey with me. Thanks for loving me mind, body and soul. Like Ben Folds reminds us: “I am the luckiest.”

Happy Anniversary Cher Danny. Ten down, eternity to go (and I wouldn’t have it any other way.)