Six Years

Earlier this month Michael and I celebrated Six Years of Marriage, though I've loved him for far longer.

We met in college, introduced through my brother-in-law-to-be and sister who were engaged at the time. We both were attendants in their wedding, but it was a whole year later before we started dating.

I had this huge crush on him. And I thought crushes were silly things for high school girls, not for college seniors. But he was just something special, something so different. He is still the most considerate, patient, kind man I know, and I couldn't help but want that in my life.

Super Bowl Sunday 2000 I told my sister Angie that I can't do it anymore. I couldn't keep pining over him. Ironically, that same night he walked me to my snowy car and helped me brush and scrape the windshield and asked me out to dinner. He has this adorable side-smirk-smile-thing that I love, and I can still picture it on that day.

We went out on Tuesday. To dinner at a small steakhouse called Malone's. I don't remember what I wore. I don't remember what he wore, save for his overcoat with what I called Paddington-Bear buttons. He picked me up and dropped me home, and didn't kiss me goodnight. A gentleman. And I was crazy for him.

This was special. This was different. This was big. Within a week I knew I was a lost cause, and six weeks later I was about to explode from not telling him the "L-word". We were in Ft Lauderdale, Spring Break, sitting on the beach after dinner, and I told him I love him. And he loved me, too.

Graduation, summer, flowers on my windshield, meeting families, etc., but by Christmas Michael decided to move to Hawaii to experience that adventure while he could. And I let him go. He left before New Year's, and we continued long-distance. I visited in April, and he came back for a wedding in October. Beyond that, I couldn't make sense of where this was going, and I broke it off and broke his heart.

We didn't talk for most of 2002, but occasionally I would hear from his roommate, and I was glad for the connection. As long as I had something connected to him, I felt like we still had a chance. I couldn't lose connection altogether.

In the spring of 2003 we had our first phone conversation. I was so nervous and so elated and we talked for a very long time. The calls became more frequent, and one morning he called me to say he'd booked me tickets to Vegas the next day! I was going to crash his brother's bachelor party, or he was going to ditch it, or whatever. I have never done something so impulsive, but the next day I was on the longest flight to Nevada with butterflies in my stomach. I remember waiting to see him for that first time again (and I remember what I was wearing this time) and the elevator opened and there he was. And my suitcase got caught in the door and I had quite the non-elegant, very nervous entry back into his life.

Two days later I flew home. And I knew I had never stopped loving him.

That summer my parents and I were headed to England and Scotland for a vacation. Michael, as fate would have it, was headed to France and Spain himself. We coordinated itineraries and he met us in London. Then we took the Chunnel to Paris for July 4th weekend. Sitting at the outdoor cafe Le Suffren, just blocks from the Eiffel Tower and the start of the Tour de France, he told me He Loves Me and wants to move to Florida to be with me. I couldn't stop smiling.

Sixteen months later he wrote me the most beautiful hand-written love note, placed it in a bottle on the beach, and proposed at sunrise by the surf.

Seventeen months later we married. Nearly four years after that Adam was born.

Six years. A lifetime ahead. Oh, what a life.