I recently watched a movie about a married woman who essentially lost interest in her husband and started to chase those new love flutters she felt for another man. They were married for five or six years before she lost interest. The movie itself wasn’t that great, but it made me think about the “The Seven-Year Itch”. Which is fitting because my husband, Jeremy, and I just celebrated our 7th Wedding Anniversary.

Jeremy and I actually had our first date ten years ago. It was in July and we went to the Arboretum. In hindsight that does sound like a terrible idea for a first date, but it turned out to be pretty much perfect in its own way. I don’t even remember what I wore that day, but it must’ve been a horrible choice because I do remember that I started sweating profusely after ten minutes of being there. We walked and talked for a while. Jeremy brought his camera and was taking pictures of everything we saw. And I was wiping sweat from my face every time Jeremy turned away from me. I didn’t even bring anything to put my hair up. Because I’m smart. OK I was just really nervous and forgot that July meant summer heat. But Jeremy didn’t seem to be nervous at all. He was calm, collected, not sweaty, and snapping away with his camera. It wasn’t until we were about to leave that he opened the back of his camera and realized that he didn’t load the film correctly. He started laughing and he looked so embarrassed as he told me what happened. I busted out laughing while I wiped the sweat from my face AGAIN. That’s when I realized that maybe he was just as nervous as I was. That was our ice breaker. And that moment is really what set the tone for our entire relationship.

After being married for seven years now, we still laugh at each other’s mistakes, like wearing the wrong thing or forgetting the camera. We’re not perfect individuals and we don’t have a perfect marriage. But what’s one thing we do have? A choice. We choose to love each other as imperfect people and we choose to stay in this imperfect marriage. Because perfection isn’t achievable. And that’s fine with me. Because once those first date falling-in-love flutters fade away, what are you left with? A best friend that you choose to stay with and love.

So as for the Seven-Year Itch? There really isn’t one with me. I choose to let my husband be my one and only back scratcher.

He bought me macarons for our 7th Anniversary and we saw some pretty sweet things while we were spending time together. But we weren’t outside in the Texas heat, this time.