Dulywed: Year 2

Dear Mack,

It's fitting that the second anniversary has a gift association of cotton. Because by the second year, you sort of feel like a slave.

I'm not just saying this about me either. Sure, I feel like I am the designated master of every dirty dish and needy bathtub that comes into our lives, but you are the one who must deal with the wrath of that master. I get annoyed by the obligations of life, and you, in a happy choreless oblivion, have to be my whipping boy.

I think this is what people mean when they say you've got to "figure it out."

We've been quite literally consumed by life the last year... you are a genuine nerd majoring in the all-important subject of biology and I am unrelentingly surrounded by egos I resent and emotional responses from women. None of this is bad, but it makes for strained dinner conversation when one wants to discuss mitochondria and the other wants to discuss feelings.

Last week, when we went out for your birthday dinner, I told myself to just shut the hell up and let you talk about whatever you wanted to talk about. I told myself that no matter how boring it was, I would listen. I would listen attentively. And I would participate in the conversation. The first 11 minutes were, at best, painful, but once I broke through that initial barrier, my god. You are fascinating.

It's like that dinner we had at Dudley's when we were dating. Beth's son was our bus boy and we ordered champagne and you told me about Beethoven and Chopin and their struggles and brilliance. I loved you that night for being more incredible than any man I've ever met, and last week, as we sipped margaritas and ate chips and salsa and I listened to you go on about science, I felt that familiar feeling of adoration. Your mind is a gift. It's all consuming and intensely focused and sometimes so in its own world that it doesn't remember the vomit you left on the shower curtain, but it is enchanting. You're a little mad scientist prince charming, my own personal Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Last year I was all about money (isn't the first year paper?!!), but it seems that this year, I'm all about chores. Some may say that is a deflection of a chronic personality disorder, but I think it's progress. I've given up the fight over funds and, even though your mom has to give you allowance because she saw the text message where you had to ask for $4 for El Pollo Loco, I'm settled into our financial position. Because all the times I thought it'd collapse, we made it through. And better than that, we're getting ahead, little bit by little bitty bit.

With the financial strain off my mind, my next wifely focus is the home. You want to preserve white walls, so redecorating is out. I want to keep my waistline from breaking a personal record, so cooking is out. It's no wonder I get batshit insane when the trash needs to go out for 4 days running. I'm trying to find the balance between nice and nag, but since I've only been practicing a year, I hope you'll bear with me until I get the hang of it. Or just buck up and take the trash out when you see it's about to attack you.

Speaking of attack, this teabagging phase you're in, it can stop any day now. And even though I may be laughing when you do it, I'm screaming bloody murder and crying like a baby on the inside.

Which is exactly how I've felt these last two years. A mix of damaging shouts, manic laughter and penetrating tears. You are a hurricane of a personality, a force to be reckoned with, a brilliance that can only be absorbed. You make every day positively worth living and a little bit suicidal. And while some days I want to kill you, you are the reason I want to wake up on most of them.

I love you. Pop. Happy Anniversary.