My husband and I celebrated 15 years together yesterday. I've been thinking about it a lot this past month and wanted to do something special to mark the occasion. I decided that I wanted to re-create our first date. It was on March 1, 2001. We had been good friends for 8 months prior, high school friends. We worked together at Wawa. We'd been to dinner together many times, the movies, and the mall. But March 1, 2001 was different because I had just had an epiphany that I was in love with him. I was 17 and knew everything. We went to Red Lobster that night and on the way home he asked me if I wanted to be his girl friend, he kissed me and we've been tethered to each other ever since.
I made plans last week to farm out the children and take him to dinner at Red Lobster. I made a playlist of songs that were popular that week in 2001, the song that was playing when we had our first kiss, our song. I got dressed up and put on heels. When he got home from work I told him to get into the passengers seat and I hopped in the car. I put on my playlist.
My husband was very confused. "Where are we going? Where are the kids? What is happening right now?" I grinned. "The kids are fine. I made plans." He sat back and relaxed and I drove. Then he realized what was playing on the radio.
"Is this a remix?"
"Yeah. Do you remember why this song is important?"
"It was playing when we had our first kiss. I remember that night. You let me get to second base."
Wait! What?
"I don't think so. I think I would have remembered that."
"You definitely did. I remember. It was awesome." Fifteen years later, he was congratulating himself and thinking he's the man.
I'm a mom now and I was disturbed. "On our first date I let that happen? WTF? I hate myself. I thought I was a nice girl. I can't believe you took advantage of me like that."
He raised his eyebrows. "It was your idea so technically YOU took advantage of ME.... but I still love you." Well, he keeps it honest.
We pulled into the Red Lobster parking lot and he burst our laughing. "We are going to re-live our first date and reminisce." He was into it.
We walked in and waited to be seated. A couple came in with a 7 month old baby and sat across from us. The baby tried to crawl into the lobster tank. I leaned into him and whispered, "Aren't you glad that isn't us anymore?" His "Yes!" was resounding.
We sat down at the table and ordered. Our waitress was weird. She was slow or something. For instance, I was eating crab legs and I asked her if she could bring me some wet naps. She said, "We are actually out of them right now but I can bring you all the lemons that you want."
I failed to see how the lemons would help with my dirty hands. We talked out the past 15 years and all the good times we've had together. It was nice to just be the 2 of us for a little while. I felt like I was 17 again.
I feel that way sometimes for no reason at all. Like this weekend when we took our cardboard to the recycling center (that's married life shit right there). He had just shaved his head and was wearing a tee shirt and athletic shorts. We unloaded all of the cardboard and I was behind him as we walked back to the car. I watched him get back into the car with his broad shoulders and the curves of his biceps. The serious look on his handsome face. The butterflies hit me out of no where. I was like:
Or when he has a trip to DC and he comes to the breakfast table in a suit and tie, or when I see him with the kids. That's hot.
Last week he was laying in bed watching a movie and I laid down next to him and studied him. His eyes, his lips, his neck and hands. He didn't like it. "Stop being weird!"
I thought about how many times he'd kissed me with those lips in the past 15 years, the hands that he wrapped around my waist at his prom, the hands that caught our second daughter when she was born. Eyes that gazed upon me when I was 16 and 30, when I was fat and thin, before and after the crows feet and how he always thought that I was beautiful.
We've known each other for almost 16 years, we've been together for 15, and we'll be married 14 years in June. I was 18 and he was 19 when we married. Practically children. People have always been really fascinated by it. They ask a lot of questions. It's a novelty. I never understood it really until now. Maybe it's because I'm in my 30s or maybe it's because I'll have a daughter in high school in two in a half years. The thought that in six years she could possibly get married and move to the middle of the country makes my blood run cold.
The question that I've been asked the most often is how I knew that he was the One. How can someone know that when they are 17? I just did. I told him the day after we met that one day we would be married and have children. When I had the epiphany that I was in love with him while sitting in my bedroom on February 28, 2001, I knew that he would be the only one. I felt it so strongly in my core and in my gut that it was the truth of my life. It was like my future was clear in an instant. I had never been so sure of anything else in my short life.
After that night in March at Red Lobster, so many things changed for me. He became the air in my lungs, every thought was of him. It was painful to be separated from him. He made me feel alive. I've known him half my life. We've been together so long - literally my entire adulthood. We are extensions of each other, we are like trees who have deep roots intertwined with one another, often times I feel like we are one and the same. There is not one without the other.
Our lives together have FAR exceeded my expectations. We have been so blessed, so lucky. We are thankful for the people in our lives - friends and family who've supported our marriage, our beautiful children, for this life that we've worked so hard to build together. I'm thankful for the years that we held on tight to each other as we braved some rough storms.
Our story might not be the most romantic, it's not flashy, it's not typical - but it's ours and that's what makes it my favorite.
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