love and relationships

Six Months


Rob and I have been married for six months as of today. And I know I write about him and our relationship quite a bit. And that I am probably boring everyone with my ramblings, but I feel that people don’t take the opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate their marriages enough. We get so caught up in the minutia of life that even though we love and appreciate our partners, we don’t take the few minutes to show it or shout it to the world. So here is my shout out to my Rob.

I love you, baby! Happy Anniversary.

Us


This time last year I had known Rob for about ten days. He introduced himself to me via a PM (private message) on the YWBB (young widows bulletin board) in response to my response to one of his posts. He had posted about his daughter, Jordan, commenting on his teenage like behavior and I had replied, jokingly offering to be his evil twin as we seemed to share many of the same behaviors. His reply message to me was entitled, Hey there Evil Twin. Our hailing each other as twins proved more prescient than either of us could have known at the time. He offered an ear via email despite the fact that he’d recently had a bad experience with another person on the board. Someone who had contacted him, and he misunderstood the true intent behind this woman’s reaching out to him. Despite that he reached out in friendship to me anyway. He had been reading my posts, sensing that we had much in common and also they occasionally made him laugh.

We began writing to each other off the board on December 18th which was just short of a week later. We nearly stopped communicating a few days after that when he told me I reminded him of a character from the Chuck Palahniuk novel, Fight Club, and I googled the character only to discover she was a support group junkie and a nymphomaniac. I was more than taken aback, and he was profusely apologetic, and persistent, and we continued writing. Now Rob tells me that his initial impression of me, based on my posting on the YWBB, was way off, but I have since watched Fight Club and I can see why I reminded him of Marla Singer. He remarked the other day that “last time this year I was on the verge of fucking things up” and I had nearly forgotten all about it. Later that evening I went back and reread the letters from that week and the week of January 1st. I was at a low point then, and I remember how much I looked forward to hearing from him, reading his emails. They weren’t necessarily grief-related, and they certainly weren’t romantic or even leading to that way. They were just the kind of emails you would send to and receive from a new friend. Full of information about daily goings on and sharing interests and interesting things. They are long letters. I have plans to print them out someday and bind them for posterity – whoever that might end up being.

A year ago tonight, Rob was in Vancouver with the girls and Katy and I were just getting back home from Christmas Eve dinner with friends who are like family. Tonight, I cooked a Chinese feast and we were all together. I don’t think I could have imagined this back then. Even though I knew I would someday meet someone and know love and marriage again, and even though I thought I would be lucky to find someone just like my new friend, Rob, I don’t think I was quite ready to imagine it was Rob. Or he me. But we were closer than we knew.

Merry Christmas to all my friends out there.

You’re Radiant


One day last week while we were cleaning up after lunch, Rob surprised me with “You look radiant.” And followed it up with, “I hope you’re not pregnant.” He was teasing about the being pregnant thing, but he wasn’t wrong about the radiance. All last week I felt this inner fire and joy. Sometimes all the stars align and everything seems to be in its place and you can’t remember the last time life was so perfect. Of course life isn’t perfect, ever. Even the best of times have their moments when life’s little details aren’t so little, and everything plus the kitchen sink mounts up with such an unrelenting steadiness of pace that you can almost predict the exact moment the tipping point will be reached. Almost. 

 

This week Rob noted that the radiance in my eyes and demeanor was on the retreat. For no reason and too many reasons all at once. None of them worth burdening my blog with, though my dear husband patiently listened to each one and offered arms and shoulders and many kisses in his campaign to restore radiance. Mindless radiance though is for brides, pregnant women, and very small children. Categories I don’t fall into.

 

Tonight as I was starting the pancakes for supper, Rob arrived home with an armful of roses. He’s a Virgo. They don’t give up easily. Actually, they don’t give up at all. As the pancakes burned to the griddle, Rob and I smooched in blissful ignorance, but later I pondered the question of radiance, wondered  what I look like radiant as opposed to not, and thought back to just a bit earlier in the day as I navigated the Avalanche around Sherwood Park (with a tiny assist from OnStar) and how wonderful that felt, and I decided that radiance should be mindful, a purpose even. It shouldn’t be the emotional equivalent of your Sunday best but worn everyday for no reason at all but to elicit queries and compliments.