The Man I Married

So, I was thinking about my old diary a lot yesterday, and I remembered that Nick was able to recover his, but he didn’t pay after the 30 days so I did a search for his diary and spent the last 3 hours of my work day yesterday reading his old entries. 80% of them mention me, and there are some really sweet things, but there are also some really mean things. We’ve been off and on for 18 years … I was texting him about things he said in the past and he was like babe, I am not that guy anymore. Which I suppose is true.

We met through Ashley actually. The Summer before I started high school. He was a year older but Ashley knew him from an after school thing called Treehouse. Nick says for the longest time he thought I was a mute because I never said anything when we saw each other in passing. Ashley was the people person. I was the quiet one. Then one day Ashley and I were walking towards her house so I could go to work and we happened upon Nick. He was telling this story about how he went to Valley Fair with a friend of his (whom much later I found out was Anthony, ya know the father of my child!) and on the power tower ride his harness thing went up and he thought he would fall to his death. And the first words I ever said to him was “It would have been funny if you died.” Now it probably had more to do with something he said while telling the story than me just wishing death upon the guy but …

He said he thought I was hot before, this quiet blue haired goth chick, but with those being my first words to him,  he was hooked. He thought I was so cool but the truth is I was just damn shy. He planned to meet up with us after work and he did. I think we played the original Mario on the Nintendo. The next day, or maybe a day after he came over “looking for Ashley.” and we walked all around town looking for her. He bought me an ice cream cone and he bought a computer game called “Blood” On the back of the box it said “It was a hoot and a holler!” I’m glad we never ended up finding Ashley because if we had, we wouldn’t have ended up in my backyard talking. As the sun was setting, laying on the grass, I licked his face. He licked mine back. Then we kissed. We kissed for a long time. He told me later he floated home on a cloud.

The next day we were hanging out with Ashley and her flavor of the week in the holes across the street from my house. They had torn out the houses and were going to build what is now the 65+ apartments where my grandma lives. Ashley and Dan were making out and Nick says shyly – we should do that. I asked if he meant make out or date. He said both. I screamed at Ashley – WHAT TIME IS IT? Ashley’s watch had 7:58 and Dan’s had 8:00 so we split the difference and officially became a couple at 7:59 on August 8th, 2001. (Married 8/8/2014)

I don’t know why I wanted to know the time. He was the only guy I ever dated where I wanted to know the time. Maybe I knew it was going to be a forever kind of thing? But we still kiss whenever the clock reads 7:59 or if we aren’t together send a kissing emoji text.

So that’s our story. There were like 200 breakups and get back together over the years. But we always came back. In fact, when he proposed, I was trying to break up with him. I had thought long and hard about all our make up/break ups, and decided I didn’t want to waste any more of my life on someone who I never really knew if he would commit. Then right in the middle he asked me to marry him. Sounded like commitment to me. Best choice I ever made.

And now, because it’s Friday, I have to get a bunch of work done.