29.4117%

10 years.  10 years ago a young woman came into my life and turned everything on its head.  10 years ago I met my wife, Tracy.  10 years.

Let me set the scene for my amazement.  Back in 2001, as Tracy and I were getting ready to celebrate our first anniversary, I turned to her and said, "You know I've never made it one year with the same woman, right?"  I'd done the breakup and get back together thing, but never one continuous year.  I remember being 25 years old and absolutely freaked out that I had spent 1/24 of my life with one person.  I know!!!  Can you even believe the ego on young me?  1/24th of MY life.  What about the fraction of her life?  Anyway, that's beside the point.  I'm just marveling at how much has changed in those ten years.

Well, I came to grips with the fact that I'd dedicated one year of my life to her and we continued on.  The following years have been happy.  They've been a marriage, which inevitably has ups and downs, but I can easily say that my joy has definitely exceeded any drama. 

Now, I sit here on the cusp of our 10th anniversary (relationship anniversary, not marriage) and I marvel at how much I can still love that woman.  I marvel on the fact that she allows me to increase my percentage each and every year.  Every year that we are together she allows me to increase my percentage.  The percentage of my life spent with her, the percentage of my life where I've been happy, the percentage of my life where I've had something to strive for, where I've had someONE to strive for. 

She's allowing my percentage to grow, but she's also allowing me to grow.  She's seen me through career changes, a return to school, unemployment, she's endured pregnancy and childbirth.  She's dealt with my morning breath and my body odor.  She's entertained my extremely cheesy sense of humor.  She's listened to my rants.  She's watched me go crazy as I get too obsessed with my fictional stories.  She listens to my rants when I have writer's block.  She puts up with my distracted nature, my obsessive personality, my tendency to never shut up or to shut up entirely and communicate nothing.  She's taken care of me when I am sick, drunk, sad, happy, panicked, and irrational.  She's spent over a quarter of her life doing all of this for me. 

I don't think I deserve it.  I don't think I deserve her a lot of times, but she stays.  She allows me to grow with her.  To find new ways to love her, to pay tribute to her, to respect her, to tend to her needs, and to find new ways to aggravate her.  Each year is an addition to the percentage of my life spent with her but also to the percentage of my heart that she owns.  

I figure by the time I am 80 years old, I will have dedicated EXACTLY 70% of my life to loving her.  Do the math, it's sound.  56/80=.7.   I'm comfortable with 70%.

Happy Anniversary, Tracy!