15 years ago today
15 years ago tonight, Laurie and I exchanged vows and agreed to spend the rest of our lives together.When we first met, via (of all places) rec.arts.comics, I was here in the Bay Area, she was in Indiana at Purdue. My first marriage was ending (mutually and respectfully -- we both simply realized our lives had gone in different directions), but don't let anyone ever tell you divorces are painless. I was a bit of a basket case (god knows how people survive breakups that get nasty).
That may seem pretty normal these days, but this was 1983, and USENET was still primarily modem-based, and long-distance online romances were still rare. Eventually I had a chance to travel east on business, and routed myself so I could spend a weekend in Lafayette. The following spring, she graduated from Purdue, packed and came west.I can only imagine the courage it must have taken to do that, even though we both felt a strong connection. Moving to a new part of the country, uprooting everything, having no fallback position if it didn't work? And patience -- waiting for the divorce to be final in 1984, waiting for me to get my act together enough that I could consider re-marrying.She moved into my life and my house in 1984.
In 1987, I finally could make the committment, and here, 15 years later, we're still together -- and I asked her if she'd allow me to stay another 15 years. Fortunately, she said yes.I have tried, since she joined my life, to remember just how lucky I was to have found her, and I have tried to never take that luck or her for granted. Not that I've always been successful -- but I've tried.This year, since Laurie's been under some stress at work, I decided to not wait for the anniversary -- I wandered down to our jeweler and brought home a nice yellow citrine pendant, which I gave her "just because".Of course, that was just misdirection. The next night, at a Sharks game (no sharkie, though), I pulled out a second box. This one contained another necklace, this with a diamond. While Laurie appreciates jewelry, her preference is for colored stones, so until now, I'd never bought her a diamond. I felt it was time to correct that.
And then I told her that if I had to do it again, I'd marry her in a minute.Today, for our anniversary, she got a third box. this one contained a set of signed. hand-carved raven motif argillite earrings from Myles Edgars a Haida artist who lives on Haida Gwaii. I found those through a dealer in Vancouver I deal with a times.Laurie, bless her, gave me a nice gift certificate at Home Depot (aka "my third home"), which if you think it isn't romantic, you don't know me very well, and a gorgeous piece of swarovski crystal to go with our growing collection of shiny glass things shaped like birds. And today at work, a delivery person arrived with a vase full of roses (which engendered at least four instances of "He'd never think to send ME flowers" -- grin).And given how work's been going, that just made my day.
(for the record, I'm still working -- but from home...)What I know is that I can't conceive of life without her, and I believe the best way to make sure she stays is to never start assuming she will. And that's something that isn't buying gifts once a year, but appreciating what you have every day...To my wife, my love, my life -- happy anniversary. And thanks for wanting to be here.
