You wooed me with your promise of guitar lessons. While left unattended while my beau was gone for a year, you told me you would teach me to play the guitar. I had friends who could ‘play’ the guitar, but I had never met someone who could play like you. I was enchanted, very interested, and looking for any innocent excuse to spend more time with this fascinating guy. I learned two chords after I returned from Europe with my new singleton status. My guitar lessons ended because we got distracted by one another. Who wanted to play chords on a guitar when we could start a whole lovely adventure together?
The night we officially became a ‘couple’ also happened to be the night of your 24th birthday. It was that year when the big snow started the day after Christmas. I drove to your house in my old beater Isuzu, handed down from my brothers, and got stranded at your house for five glorious days. We played in the snow, walked everywhere, and marveled at a world that was stopped by the flakes that continued to fall from the clouds. I came to your house that week as a girl with a crush and left as a girl in love. I couldn’t believe my luck. I still can’t. We fit together like a puzzle: vegetarians, liberals, wannabe parents, gardeners, crafters and we both really needed someone attentive to love. I remember you told me that you weren’t looking for a girlfriend, you were looking for a partner. I was really happy to be your partner, and now I am really happy to be your wife and partner in child taming.
We spent that spring and summer lazily planning our future. I lived on my parents boat until it sold that spring while you finished your degrees at UW. We had small jobs, me as a part time nanny and you as a note taker at the university. You graduated and we decided to graduate from our childhoods and moved to Bellingham, where we started our own independent life in earnest. We found crappy jobs but were so happy in our little house on Ellis Street.
You proposed in the snow while we were walking home from work one day. You stopped me at a favorite fountain of ours and started telling me about how amazing I am. At first I just listened, confused and shy of your adoring words, and suddenly I figured out where this was going: you were about to ask me to be your wife, your partner in life! I stopped you and made you start all over so I could pay attention in more detail, now that I knew how serious this conversation was. As you always do, you honored my request, started over, and I, of course, said yes. We were married at the tender ages of 25 and 26 on June 5th, 1999, a year and a half after the proposal.
On our honeymoon, at my insistence, we bought three day passes to Disneyland. Neither of us had been since we were five years old. We walked in, me anticipating magic, you dreading every step. We hit all of the wrong spots at first: Toontown & Tomorrowland. Total duds. Then we stepped into Adventureland, and all that childhood magic came pouring back. It was all different, but totally the same. We had a blast! That trip started our current obsession with all things Disney and our drive to return over and over.
We decided to be responsible adult children. That is, we would embrace our inner children while still handling our money and lives responsibly. We decided not to grow up, and I think so far we’re doing a pretty good job of that. We spent our days and nights playing Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, swam every day in summer, sometimes twice a day, played in the woods, camped, took road trips, ate bad food, dug in the dirt, danced and laughed until our bellies hurt. As time has gone on, I became a teacher partially to keep that youthful spirit alive and you have become a stay at home dad. You draw, a passion since childhood, have embraced your love of Star Wars and spend hours role playing with our own children all the while maintaining a house, building a house and paying the bills on time. I think we have met our goal!
I have accomplished things I never thought possible before there was you. Because of your belief in me and your belief in us, almost anything is possible. Babies were hard to come by for us, but we have them, love them and wish we could have 11 more! I was a 25 year college dropout who didn’t think much of herself as an intellectual, but with your encouragement I returned to school, easily maintained a 3.8 GPA and graduated. We bought our first house as students with barely two dimes to rub together and used the equity when we sold it to pay off our student loans and to buy our new house, then you started building us a whole new house this fall. You make the impossible possible. I thank my lucky stars that you just happened to step out of your comfort zone to come to a birthday party at my little attic apartment many many years ago. And I marvel that you think you are getting the better end of the stick, that you got the prize wife when I think quite the opposite, that I got the prize husband!
You are wonderful, you are amazing, and I am so lucky that I got to be the one to fall in love with you. Happy Birthday Papa Bear. I look forward to June 29th when we’ll put a proper spin on your 37th celebration of life, and the lifetime of many many more celebrations with our children, grandchildren, and maybe even a few great grandchildren too. I love you.
- BROWSE / IN TIMELINE
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