Almost thirty years…

Boy meets girl. Almost three decades later they’re still together and still friends & lovers with each other.
Nope, I’m not talking about one of my books. I’m talking about my story.
Tomorrow is my 18th wedding anniversary. My husband and I met in middle school and became friends. We lent each other books—he’s the one who got me hooked on Stephen King—and cassette tapes (I had borrowed a Heart tape from him in high school and forgot to give it back to him before we graduated. He got it back eventually. After all, my stuff became his and vice versa.) We had a handful of classes together in high school—honors Bio, physics, gym classes, and a history class he remembers me cutting a lot of in our senior year. After he received his driver’s license and car, he would pick me up and take me to school. We’d have lunch together on occasion with the guys. Needless to say, we were good friends. I felt comfortable talking to him and sharing aspects of my life.
Then there came the one moment in my life I sometimes wish I could go back and change, but in retrospect am glad I can’t, otherwise I may not be where I am today. He asked me out in our senior year, wanted me to go to a hockey game with him and some of his friends. I was dating someone at the time and for some reason told him that I was invited to a hockey game with my guy friends. My boyfriend didn’t like the idea of me going out with a bunch of guys, even though they were just friends, so I turned down the hockey date. Things became strained between my future husband and me. The guy I was dating ended up cheating on me several months later, which is why I sometimes wish I could go back and tell him to F-off and that I didn’t need his permission to go out with friends. But I also know that if I dated my husband in our senior year we probably wouldn’t be together today. So high school ends, DH and I go our separate ways.
Five years later, I’m in a restaurant waiting for a friend of mine and up walks this other man who wonders if I am who he thinks I am. Turns out it was my friend from high school. We started dating that weekend. Nine months later we were engaged. Three months later, a week shy of our one year of dating, we were married. (No, it wasn’t shotgun. He was in the military and due to be stationed in Texas in preparation for duty in Korea. So we wanted to get married before he went on tour.)
It was a hell of a winter, too. Snow storm after snow storm battered the northeast from November to March that season. I’m thankful the day we got married it didn’t snow. Actually, it was quite beautiful with the sun and blue sky, but damn cold! Good thing my girls and I wore tuxedos. Yes, I wore a tux. Hey, I was in college and poor and I couldn’t see spending money on a dress I was only going to wear once, especially when I hate to wear skirts and dresses. Since I had five in my party renting tuxes, I got mine for free. Plus, I planned to drink and didn’t want to deal with all the fabric of a dress in a stall at the reception hall.
So, we’re married, we move to Texas for a couple of years then back to the northeast. (He never did go to Korea.) Now we live in the southwest where we have to deal with the white stuff only on rare occasions.
Even after all this time, he’s still my best friend. I’ve grown to love him more and more over the years. He knows me better than myself. Sometimes that’s not good, but most times I am grateful for it—keeps me from getting in trouble. He’s seen me at my worst and my best. We’re each other’s biggest fans and staunchest supporters—though after reading a couple of my stories he’s mentioned he wonders about where my mind goes and I wonder how he can do marathons and iron-distance triathlons. We read each other’s minds a lot and have weirded out our friends when we do it around them. We laugh at the same stuff and have close viewpoints on the world around us. Don’t get me wrong, we aren’t tied at the hip and we still have our ‘differences’ and ‘discussions.’ But we know how to be on our own, continue to pursue separate interests to keep our sense of self and to communicate so ‘discussions’ don’t blow up into WW3 arguments. It’s just a matter of trust, of love and of being friends and I’m looking forward to the next thirty+ years of being with him.
Thanks for stopping by!
Happy Reading!
C.R. Moss