“There’s a Dewalt battery operated industrial fan on sale over there,” I said to my husband as he searched the back wall of Tractor Supply for the right battery for my car that wouldn’t start. “I could use it on stage when it’s hot.”

“Well, happy anniversary!” he laughed. “Go load it up!”

We spent that morning moving cows to better grass and water, riding good horses through pretty country, commenting on how we really need the rain. We had a few additional errands and chores to get done that Sunday before sending the kids down the road to their grandparents’ so we could grill a steak and pour a glass of wine to celebrate in our kitchen. 

As of last week, we have been married for twenty years. On our actual anniversary I will be across the state performing and my husband will be at the ranch working and our daughters will be playing with their cousins on the last few days of summer. And maybe twenty years deserves a bigger celebration than a trip to Tractor Supply and clearing the table of the baby dolls so we can eat steak together at 9 pm, but in our life, grand gestures have never been a thing.

The biggest, I suppose, was our wedding in the cow pasture under the oak tree where he proposed. We planned a little movie scene ceremony, complete with an entrance on a horse drawn wagon. All our guests sat on homemade benches on a breezy August day after a much-needed evening of thunderstorms that threatened the whole plan. Chad spent the entire 48 hours prior roasting a pig in a big hole in the ground to feed the rehearsal dinner guests and, due to that thunderstorm, our back yard picnic turned into a jam session in my parents’ tiny garage, the only place on the ranch we hadn’t cleaned. We were just kids when we made these plans. I turned 23 two weeks into our marriage when, for our honeymoon my new husband came with me on his four days off his oil rig job to a small gig where I played music under a picnic shelter in Redfield, South Dakota. Along the way we splurged on a fancy hotel and a new refrigerator that was too big to fit in the kitchen in the tiny ranch house, so it sat there in the middle of the house for days until we figured out a new plan.

We were just 23, but I had already loved him for years by then, silly girl. Silly kids.

If I were a better writer, I would have worked to make a list of the top 10 things I’ve learned about marriage in these twenty short years. Or maybe I could offer some advice. But marriage, no matter how long it lasts, isn’t a tidy list. In fact, maybe the longer you’re together, the less tidy it all becomes.

“You should hear it outside, it’s just buzzing and humming,” he said as he came in from taking the steaks off the grill. “The crickets are so loud, and so is the owl. It’s dark but everything’s just vibrating.”

I stood under the big kitchen light, clearing the counter for our little supper for two, chopping the lettuce and grabbing the plates. In the movies I would have lit some candles or lit a fire, maybe I would have come out in a pretty dress. Maybe there would have been jewelry. But we didn’t get to all that because we were too busy catching up, talking about plans for the barn and the kids and the business and the funny thing that happened yesterday, letting it all sit on the counter too long. These days, with two growing girls nipping at our heels, our house is rarely filled with just our two voices. To just be us under this roof is rare.

But it won’t be rare for long—that’s the one thing we know well. We put trust in the fleeting part, the good and the hard, and we’re pretty good at linking arms and trudging on through. And it’s easier when he gets the battery for my broken car and I get the groceries and we do the dishes together and I fold his socks and mow the lawn and he cleans the drain and makes the homemade noodles and he puts Rosie to bed and I put Edie to bed and I let the puppy out and he pulls on the other end of the fitted sheet and I stand behind the trailer to make sure he’s lined out and he wipes the dust off the backup camera of my car every time he walks by it.

Twenty years of marriage and I still understand that love is hardly ever loud. I knew that as the girl who married him. I just liked being with a man who made things like cattle work, a trip to Tractor Supply, a sort of messy house and a kitchen counter supper feel like the best life anyone could ask for.