Four years ago some slut met my boyfriend at the airport in her skivvies covered by a red trench coat and high heeled shoes.
Oh…wait. That slut was me. (I’m not really a slut, but you wouldn’t know it by how I went to the airport.)
Golly, I was so nervous. (Like, seriously ready to sell my soul for the guarantee I wouldn’t vomit.)
When I saw him come down the walkway I was suddenly calm. Then there was nothing but my big bucktooth grin and his beautiful blue eyes…he walked silently to me and dropped his bag then took my face in his hands and kissed me. It was an absolutely perfect first kiss.
Actually, that kiss is the entire reason I can write this four years later…for had that kiss not been what it was, I don’t know if we would have ever been a couple. (Does that sound…I don’t know…shallow? I don’t mean it to be, I just know that it didn’t matter if he was spectacular in the sack, if he couldn’t kiss…he wasn’t the man for me. But that kiss was lovely and I was mad about him…so here we are!)
YBW and I went to high school together…we knew of the other, but didn’t really have much contact. I had my circle of friends and he had his…but we did have British Lit together senior year.
Fast forward twenty years, we’ve both been married and divorced, both had kids…both showed up for our twentieth reunion.
Sundance and I went as each other’s date…the plan was “see three specific people and have one drink, then go to dinner and a midnight movie”. (Did I mention she and I are idiots? Because we closed the reunion facility at 11 before moving on to a local watering hole…then closed it too. All of this after we stood in the parking lot trying to decide if we should even go inside. Let me just tell you how glad I am we did!)
All I could say to Sundance on the way home and all the next day was, “Damn YBW grew up yummy.”
So after I returned home, I took a risk…I sent him a private message on FB. We dated via FB and email then texting and on the phone for months before we decided to see what it would be like to try it live…he specifically asked me if I wanted to come to him of have him come to me…without thought, I told him I wanted him to come to me. It made me feel safer somehow.
That was October 24, 2009.
He told me he believed he was falling in love with me that first day, and even though I didn’t know exactly how much of what I felt about him, I didn’t panic! I had been through so much unpleasantness and absolutely did not feel loveable, but I took a leap of faith and trusted him…and let myself fall in love with him.
We knew it would be…tricky to date long distance. And there were a couple of times I didn’t think it was worth it…but here’s a good thing about YBW and me…we can talk with real honesty about everything and when I said, “If this is how you need to be in a relationship, I’m not the girl for you and that breaks my heart.” He said, “I love you, I need you in my life. You are my future.” That was the conversation that changed everything.
Interestingly enough, this is the first time (since the trench coat) we’ve actually spent this day together. When he asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate, I said, “Go get donuts!”
“Don’t you want to go someplace nice or a little fancy?”
“Nope, I want to go to Krispy Kreme with you just like our first date.”
So we went back and forth for a few days…I stuck to my guns…but with the first night of the World Series on the TV in the background, he convinced me to find a ‘nicer place’ to spend our anniversary, so I chose a little out of the way place with a killer wine cellar and when I asked him if he wanted to go there, he shrugged and said, “sure, whatever.” (Not in a total dick way, but it was clear where we went didn’t matter to him.) So I turned off the TV and said, “I’m not sure what’s up with you but you’ve been up my ass to pick someplace nice to go when I told you all I wanted to do was get donuts. If you think I have some big expectation or you feel like you’re in some way obligated to make a big production of it, that’s you…not me.”
He said, “I’m sorry.”
That seemed strange to me, I didn’t think he needed to apologize…but I did finally tell him I wanted him to choose what we did as long as we still got to go to Krispy Kreme.
So Thursday I got a text that read, ‘I’ve decided you need lemongrass chicken tonight’ and I was all WOO HOO! So we went to our favorite little dive of a Vietnamese restaurant where he got pho and I had delicious chicken, and then went and had donuts and coffee.
He held my hand as he drove us home and once again told me happy anniversary. I was one big bucktooth grin and replied, “It was exactly what I wanted. Do you see these teeth? I had the best anniversary and I am so happy!”
And I am happy.
Not because he ‘makes me happy’…but because with him I am as real as I’ve ever been, I am the one true me…I have no fear. The me I am in this relationship is safe and true…and so exquisitely happy.
He doesn’t make me happy.
I don’t make him happy.
We’re just blessed enough to love each other and be happy about it.
Four years seems to have blown by in an instant…the other side of that is it seems I’ve loved him since the dawn of time.
I’m so divinely happy…without embarrassment or irony.
Because four years ago I took a chance on a very yummy man who loves the truest me. (He also kinda loves the me who showed up in her skivvies…I’m just saying.)
So, here’s to love…and Krispy Kreme donuts!
therobynbirdsnest 