fourteen

He looked over at me in the gathering dusk, and said, “You know, I used to have a crush on you.”

Excuse me – used to?

I should have known then that he was going to be trouble.

He was my mother’s worst fear about me attending an out of state college: a tall, cute Texas boy. What if I never came back?

But if you know him, you know that of course he brought me back. Like always, like I know he always will. He brings me back.

He knew he wanted to marry me after we laid on the floor at my parent’s home one Christmas, long after everyone else went to bed. We looked at the Christmas lights and dreamed their colors out into the possibilities of a life, home, adventure, kids. That night, he says, I knew. A month later we were engaged.

He asked me to marry him in the front seat of his pickup truck – because I wouldn’t get out and take a walk, it was cold – and I screamed yes and honestly, I was just trying to hug him, I didn’t mean to nearly break his nose. With my elbow.

He should have known I was trouble then.

Right before we were married, he gave me a necklace, based on the words to a song: this song

If I had a spell of magic

I would make this enchantment for you

A burgundy heart shaped medallion

With a window that you could look through

So that when all the mirrors are angry

With your faults, and all you must do

You could peek through that heart shaped medallion

And see you from my point of view.

Fourteen years later, his point of view is still the way I most like to see myself.

Happy anniversary sweetheart – our adolescent aged marriage can get it’s learner’s permit now. Where shall we go next?