Happy Anniversary Man With A Drill, Love Woman With A Camera!

I wondered as I sat down to compose this post, how many words are in the English language?
There is absolutely no sensible answer to this question. It is impossible to count the number of words in the English language, I mean after all, what counts as a word? Is dog one word, or two (a noun meaning 'a kind of animal', and a verb meaning 'to follow persistently')? If we count it as two, then do we count inflections separately too (dogs plural noun, dogs present tense of the verb). Is dog-tired a word, or just two other words joined together? Is hot dog really two words, since we might also find hot-dog or even hotdog written in two different ways?
It is also difficult to decide what counts as 'English'. What about medical and scientific terms? Latin words used in law, French words used in cooking, German words used in academic writing, Japanese words used in martial arts? Do you count Scots dialect? Youth slang? Computing jargon?
Then there are words people just make up on a daily basis, like the word bazillion. I love that word. Where did it come from? And the other day I was on Facebook and my cute little friend said she was conflustered. Wow, I tucked that word into my vocabulary for a rainy wordless day. Words fascinate me!
The Second Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, add 47,156 obsolete words to that number. Then you can go on to add 9,500 derivative words included as sub entries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of interjections, conjunctions, prepositions, and suffixes. I could go on all day here in my determination of a number no one can really pin point exactly.
What's the point of all this. Of a bare minimum of 228,132 words in the English language, which one's do I choose today to express the ups and downs of 33 years of marriage and the love behind it all?
I'm married to 'Man with a drill.' He's a great guy most of the time. Then there are those days when I am so agitated, time spent in prison and the means of how to obtain a jail cell look inviting!
I am 'Woman with a camera', a temper, a lack of patience, but I am also a woman who is so passionate about life and how it should be lived I can't breath some days. I'm deep not shallow, I'm determined not stubborn, I am emotional to a degree most people don't understand, but only because I truly know what it's like to feel unloved, to feel unimportant, and to see the present wasted. I've had experiences that have left an indelible mark on me, a mark that has imploded great wisdom into my frame.
33 years ago I made a choice. I stood in the hallway on the 2nd floor of the Ogden Temple. I was holding Glade's hand waiting to walk into our sealing room, waiting to walk into a life I could barely dream of. I remember it like it was yesterday. His hand was damp, cold, clammy, and uninviting. My hand was alive, hot, dry, and excited for the future. I couldn't wait to leave my old life behind and take on this new one. I was filling a sad and lonely hole in me that day, and I couldn't wait. My life long goal was to have a 'Happy Home' and here I stood looking in at a beautiful dream, just minutes away from kneeling in front of it and the man I loved! My soul was anything but scared.
Glade must have sensed that day, in some real fashion that he was never going to get an 8 course meal ever again. He was leaving the house of homespun luxury. No more hot breakfasts consisting of eggs piled high with bacon, or lunches packed in a sack with serious immensity. He had to of known there would be no more pie plates piled high with fat, protein, and carbohydrates left waiting in the fridge every night if he were going to be ten minutes late; pie plates warmed and served up by loving hands tending to his every whim the minute he got home. I tease him. I tell him his hand was cold and clammy that morning because he knew deep inside that day, hell was comin' and I was comin' with her. Hahahahahah! I still remember the first morning he asked me, "Where's breakfast?"
"I don't know," I politely replied. "Did you fix it yet?" I mean after all, I grew up on a farm with no boys. My mom was busy doing a man's work. I lived in a home where your soul goal was to survive. That meant if you wanted food you fixed it yourself. I do remember my mom cooking when I was young but then I turned 15 and I was on my own in the breakfast department, lunch too, and lots of time supper.
I also saw something growing up as a child that cemented my way of being in an unshakable stance. I watched my mom wait on my dad hand and foot my whole entire life. If we were sitting at the table and the bread sat a measly six inches away from my dad's fingers, she would have to jump up butter and prepare it and place it gently in the palm of his lazy little hand. Some days I wanted to ask her, "Why don't you just put a bib on him and spoon feed him."
My dad was a great man in many respects, but I saw how my mom waited on him hand and foot every stinking day of her life and I saw everything she  never got for it.  It didn't take me long as a kid to figure out, I'm sure as hell not goin' there! It took me a long time to realize after I was married I could be nice to my husband and he wouldn't be loud and violent! Some things just never leave you, so this is something I always have to remind myself, "Be nice to your husband, he won't abuse you."
I could go on and on with all of those words found in the English language that describe the worst of me and the worst of Glade. Some days he might say I'm meaner than a badger in a fox hole, but I'm here to tell you Glade has some acrimonious, cantankerous, caviling, censorious, ignoring, deprecating, disparaging, peevish, petulant, irritable finky quirks that rival mine in every way.
Everybody just thinks he's a nice guy and I'm a mean old witch. But then they don't live with us. No one ever sees all there is to see.
Now I didn't come here today to point out Glade and I"s faults even though that's what I've been doing. As you can see we both have more than our share. What I want to stress today is the fact that I've been married to Glade for 33 years and in those 33 years despite those debilitating faults, it's been one hell of a great ride! ONE I WOULD NOT TRADE!!!  Together we have seen the very best and the absolute worst of each other. We've battled up hills that were so steep I wanted to quit and cash it in. Despite those bad times, we've seen good times that have brought us the most fulfilling happiest moments we've ever hoped to have. Despite the bad, we've seen the beauty of love in ways few can describe.
In raising a family and trodding down the marital path, we've seen it all. We buried a baby together and somewhere in that experience we learned we have to continue to work to bury the worst that lies within us. Somewhere we've learned we can always come back to the good. I can thank my Heavenly Father for that. He always sees us through!
I've always been grateful for change even when Glade and I think change is impossible. We both battle ourselves in different ways. The great thing that brings me alive today is the fact that we keep battling, we keep digging, and in doing so we keep finding the best there is to find in each other. We are dedicated to each other, we held hands and made a vow across an alter, we love each other, and like my parents who never once thought of ending their marriage, (even when some days I thought they should have,) we are not quitters! We're in this for the long haul. Our goal is an eternal one. We are hell bent, and always Heaven guided!
So while these three little words "I LOVE YOU" might sound so trite when I say them, for 33 years they have been fashioned with blood, sweat, and tears and they hold something so inexpressible in me. In the meager 228,132 words in the English language that I have to chose from today, I just can't find all the right one's to tell 'Man with a drill' how much 'Woman with a Camera' loves him!
I love you Glade and no matter what, I always will!  You are a wonderful man. You are such a hard worker. You are kind and generous in so many ways. Today I am so glad you belong to me! Happy Anniversary! Thanks for not letting go of my hand that day. Thanks for holding on to it in the face of earth shaking fear. Thanks for leading me into a holy place and for not backing out. Thank you for staying true, dedicated, and always going the distance with me, and most of all, thanks for being the best choice in my life I could have ever made!