My parents have been together for just shy of twenty-five years—just shy of how long I've been alive. A favorite photo of mine is their wedding party.  My dad is stepping forward, smiling, and instructing a pause. I am cradled in the next photo.

They're still together in a relationship that's not at all like storybook love, but they downright could not function without the other. Where one goes, the other annoyedly follows. My mom puts out the fires and my dad takes out the trash.

Being the ******* child that tied them together is funny. As soon as I learned how it is that they love, I realized just how much they love me. But to watch them fight is so funny. Being half of each of them is so funny. To see and feel solutions and to internally diffuse their clamor before explaining how or why is so funny a feeling. I think they are surprised when I know things about them that they don't realize or share. After twenty-five years I am surprised that there are things that they don't know about each other or themselves. They bred it, and it's me. Then again, I am surprised each time I learn a thing about myself I did not know. But it's dad's birthday so stop being difficult and let's go to Red Lobster.