How We Met {Part Three}

I arrived in Vermont in a cold blowy March day, and the minute I was met at the plane, I knew I would get on well with this man. There was none of the awkwardness that one gets when meeting online friends for the first time. We had exchanged pictures so we were aware of what the other one looked like…no surprises there on either side.

We spent the next month getting to know each other and {on my part} deciding that we could live with each other. There were many things to discuss. One detail I insisted we talk about was money. I have always worked and since my divorce I had held down two jobs so that we could remain living at the level we were before the divorce and not lose my house. Financial independence is important to me. So what we decided to do was to have an account we could both access called the household account and to which we contributed equally. Out of this would come groceries, rent, utilities and amything else that we both agreed on. Our personal accounts were our own completely. Our clothing, cars, etc would come from our personal accounts and what we spent this money on was nobody’s business but our own. And we would take turns cooking, a week at a time. {I hate to cook but feel obligated to do my share}

I found that I LOVED Vermont even in March which is not exactly the best month to see it. We took little expeditions all over but the one I remember the most was going down to Lake Champlain {which we still do} to watch the sun set over the lake behind the Adirondak Mountains. Somehow it seemed to epitomise all that is good about Vermont that on this cold March evening there were many other people besides us who had come to this spot just to see the sun set. At the end of the first week, I telephoned Tanya, told her how much I wanted for the house and asked her to get the paperwork started. I had decided that Vermont was where I wanted to be. But now, I had to go back to Mississippi, dispose of 18 years of accumlulated possessions and decide what I was going to take with me…and more importantly, tell my kids what I was going to do.

to be continued…