Anniversary

[strangecharm]

Andrew and I are going to York this weekend, because I anticipated his desire to mark our anniversary (I always struggle with them, and yet I'm the one who says I'm sad if days are all like other days and that we need ceremony and festive spaces) and declared that I wanted to Go Somewhere but then I was done with the planning.

So he's booked us a night in a B&B in York ("Why York?" I asked. "Do you have ideas about what we should do?" and he said "No, none. I thought we talked about York the other week" and I said "I thought we talked about Yorkshire," but whatever; we know York really well and maybe I'll finally get to go up in the tower since I always seem to go to the minster with people who are afraid of heights).

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Seven years, we'll have been married. Nine we've been together.

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I hope it's a good weekend. Andrew has been so ill lately; his life has reached some kind of crux point again, so maybe it's a bad time to go away for a couple of days but I think it's a good one. Time to walk around and hold hands and try to figure out what we'd like to do, rather than what we have to do.

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I always think it's so strangely timed, our anniversary. Maybe I can't help but think of how arbitrarily it got to be that way (our wedding was nearly just before Christmas, but I think the filghts were too expensive or Andrew couldn't get the time off work or something), maybe a little bit of me is sad we couldn't talk my parents into postponing it a few months so that the three of us could get used to life without my brother before I left. Maybe I'm just bad at anniversaries and it would seem weird no matter what.

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The best time I've ever been to York was for the mystery plays. I learned about those in classes I had to take for my ill-advised English major, never dreaming I'd get to see them performed. It was a sunny day (it always seems to be sunny when I'm in Yorkshire) and we sat on green grassy hills to watch.

The second-best time I've been to York was when gentleman_lech and lulybunny were visiting and we went to this amazing pub full of pie and Black Sheep. Or possibly the time I was there with setharoo, maybe the first time, when we went to the Railway Museum and ate lunch out of paper bags, again sitting on green grass under the sunshine.

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These are all friends I hardly talk to any more. In such a short space of time -- all this is within the time I've been married, which makes me appreciate how long Andrew's been putting up with me now. -- people become very important, and then drift away. I know it's the way of the world, I'm not breaking any new ground in the human condition here, but still I feel it keenly.

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Anyway, I'm interested in suggestions of things to do in York. I have some ideas, but I seem to be a different person every time I go there, so I don't know if the old ones will still be good.

Comments

[yoyoangel]

Happy Anniversary to you and Andrew.

[miss_s_b]

There used to be a couple of good pubs but it's been so long since I've been I don't think I can be of much use :(

Have a good anniversary anyway :)

[strangecharm]

It's okay; it's kind of pointless going to pubs with Andrew, although oddly pubs that do food tend to be good places for us to eat as they do "proper" food wot Andrew likes and usually veggie stuff for me.