Seventeen

We nearly ran into each other for years. Literally. And beginning young too: his mother and her best friend worked in a shop that my mom and I frequented when I was a child. The first time I lived in town, I ate at all the same places he did (like the Soup Kitchen which was a great place, and Real Food) and the bars we drank in (O’Malley’s & the Waterin’ Hole) were at opposite ends of the bowling alley -- we were almost certainly in that parking lot at the same time! Later on, I was a cashier at a grocery he stopped at almost daily on his walking commute from his place of work.

We have wondered what we would have thought of each other had we met at any of those times.

But even before that, our grandfathers almost surely knew one another but we'd lost both of them before we came to be and so couldn't ask. But they were on opposite sides of the political fence and may have spit at each other if they had been able to come to the wedding.

After finally having made each other’s acquaintance, the to be husband finally made a gesture that caused me to feel those butterflies. But he'd meant it mostly as a gesture of pity, or so he says, and had I known that, I would have been offended instead of enchanted. Then I showed up at his house and didn't leave. That showed him the consequences of enchanting someone!

When we decided to get married, our preacher said to us, "You can stand on your head and chant your mantras if you want to," when asked about order of service. And so we did. No prayers, but a funny long reading from The Little Prince and a thunderstorm. My father wanting to walk me down the isle and me declaring that I did not belong to anyone to give me away, and I wouldn't belong to anyone after the ceremony either.

Seventeen years. It can't be really because I still only feel about 18 years old. I've been trying to work on that, feeling older, trying to remember not to feel pretty but handsome.

And this life on the farm could not have been built alone by either one of us. And these kids, wow. And that easy banter we have with each other, and the way we've worked out getting everything talked out eventually so that there are not compromises but mutual agreement. The way one can be cooking and the other finish it. The way he makes my coffee and I make his tea.

We didn't vow to love and obey, we vowed to support each others' dreams. And mostly, we've lived up to it.

Thank you sweetie.