CELEBRATIONS
I Married an Eight Year-Old
One of the things you realize when you spend enough time with other humans is that many of us are still firmly in touch with our inner eight year-old. In the worst cases this means we can be bratty and precocious. But in the best cases we view the world with the innocence of a child, where there is adventure around every corner if you’re just willing to look.
A childlike outlook is what makes life worth living. It turns the whole world into a canvas filled with opportunities to learn new things and then share them with those who have the same view of the benefits of exploration. It helps us dial down the noisy distractions of an increasingly messy Earth.
Us eight year-olds can close our eyes and instantly transport ourselves to a summer camp cabin, a grade school dance with “Burn This Disco Out” blaring on a bad PA system, or that one time that Kurt Mers got attacked by a dog on the way to school.
We can also bounce back from failure, navigate our way through the death of a loved one, or see the forest for the trees. Our short memories are both our greatest point of frustration and our most valuable asset.
Fortunately for me, my wife is one of those best cases. She still celebrates every time we’re driving through some far-flung state and she sees a license plate from our home county of Hamilton, Ohio. She is 100% positive that she’s going to win the lottery every time she buys a ticket. And on at least one occasion she loudly exclaimed “Santa!” when we came across some old man dressed as the king of the elves, just like she would have when she was eight.
It’s that clear-eyed sense of fun that endears her to so many people. Feeding off of her energy helps keep those who know her feeling younger than their age.
It’s also what makes her a great teacher. She’s so in touch with her grade school self that she’s a natural leader of 11–14 year-olds. She can’t always remember their names when we run into them at church festivals many years after their eighth grade graduation, but they always remember hers.
She goes by the same nickname her dad gave her when she was a kid, knows the lyrics to every soft rock song from the ‘70’s, and has the ultimate soft spot for “Born to Run,” an album released a couple years before she turned eight.
Today she’s celebrating her 53rd birthday. It’s our 31st such celebration since we started dating in 1992. She has more stray grays than when we first met and her body aches quite a bit more after a hot body sculpt session at the gym. But she’s still just a kid.
