Atypical Anniversary

How many times have we seen television shows where a special day comes around and the husband forgets the day? The wife starts to simmer as the day wears on and her husband doesn't realize it's her birthday or their anniversary. If the story plays out true to form, the wife will get extremely angry, but the dim-witted husband will eventually make it up to his wife and they'll live happily ever after, or at least until next week's unimaginative cliché-ridden script shows its familiar face. Sometimes I wonder if this scenario actually ever happens in real life. I figure it must happen at least occasionally or this old chestnut of a plot line wouldn't have enough resonance with people to get constantly recycled.

Yesterday was the 21st anniversary of the day which my husband and I regard as our most important (more important than our wedding day itself), the day we admitted our feelings for each other and made a commitment to each other. It was also the first time that it was completely forgotten by one of us. Of course, the one who forgot was me. I'm not a typical wife in most ways. Perhaps I'm simply an atypical female and it has nothing to do with being married. It's hard for me to know since I often feel I can't relate to the Japanese wives around me and I know so few married foreign women. All I can say is that I don't like jewelry, shoes, perfume, or clothes. I'd rather spend all day maintaining computer systems than go shopping. I'd also rather talk to my husband than any other friend and I never complain about him behind his back to other people (though I confess that I often compliment him "behind his back" to other people...who would very much like me to shut up about him.) I also forget birthdays and now anniversaries.

On the left are two individual pieces of cheesecake and chocolate Swiss cake roll. On the right is a mont blanc (chestnut) Swiss cake roll.

Last night my husband came home from work and pulled two (small) boxes of expensive cakes out of his backpack. I told him he was very sweet for going to such trouble to surprise me with something so nice and he smiled at me and asked, "what date is it?" I had no idea what he was referring to until I looked up at the calendar and said, "it's July 18." I was so slow that I didn't get it until I'd said the date out loud and it's enormous importance hit me. That sort of slow-wittedness doesn't just exist in bad comedy scripts.

Fortunately for me, my husband is understanding and wasn't the least bit upset that I didn't remember. I think the fact that I worship him on a daily basis may help mitigate some of the damage of my forgetting our anniversary. Still, I'm hoping that I don't forget again. I'm starting to feel like my brain is a library that has long been filled to capacity and some very important information has been shoved into the darkest, dustiest and hardest to reach areas of my mental library. I want those books to be put out front where they can be easily reached. I'm just not quite sure how to move them there.