Twenty Years On

Twenty Years On

Or

How to Define an Anniversary

Dave E1094

What is your definition of an anniversary?  Everyone has their own.  For all the straight, married folk of the world, it is the day they stand up in front of family and friends and say their “I do’s”.

 

For the rest of us, denied in large part this opportunity, we make up our own dates to celebrate and revere.  For some it was the first time they actually met, for others, it was the first time they had sex, for others it was the date they moved in together as a couple, for some…..all those things happened on the same day, problem solved.

 

It was twenty years ago today that Dave and I met.  The details of that fateful night are well and oft repeated and lovingly told on our homepages, www.wuzzle.com.  But today I choose not to reflect on the beginnings of our relationship but linger a bit on what it has become and where it has led us over the last two decades.

 

We started with a “no fault” clause in effect.  We would move in together for a year and then, like all good contractual obligations, review our status and either opt out with no penalties or move forward into…..what, the next relationship?  We had no clue but time would guide us along that path and we were full of fun and life and promise and the world was still our idealistic oyster to be shucked and the pearl was waiting to be discovered.

 

We came to each other from vastly different worlds, the classic “opposites attract” probably on full display although we were somewhat blissfully unaware at that point, a fact all our friends were loath to point out, repeatedly.

 

I was a loner in the world of relationships, a serial dater, happily on my own and with no real incentive or burning desire to settle into what my own family history had modeled to me as a marriage (see Going Feral at Fourteen, the blog).  Dave, on the polar opposite end of the globe, had come from the Beaver Cleaver School of Perfect Family and Parenting, the eldest of eight kids, religiously raised and calmly shepherded into adulthood with no major dramas save for a seemingly endless divorce from the wife he married just out of college, as was the supposed path we all were to take, coming from the era we did.

 

We met in a country bar in Atlanta amidst the masses of men swaying to the uber-country beat that was sweeping the nation and that presaged the rise of Country as a national pastime.  As such, we seem to have bonded over music early on and there has been a tradition of music in our lives ever since; A Sound Track for Our Lives.  Fast forward to this morning when the ubiquitous Facebook flashed a post from a friend that summed it up to perfection:

Photo

Ours has, always, had this soundtrack and while maybe not telling us what the hell is going on when it is happening, it has certainly signposted where we’ve been along the way.

 

The first and still most resilient of these road markers came, ironically, on one of our first road trips together, to meet Dave’s parents for the very first time in Asheville, NC.  Along the way, a song came on the radio (FM only in those prehistoric and pre-Sirius days) and went unidentified by the DJ, only the words and the melody, taunting us to pull into focus the singer.  We played a game then, and still do today, of challenging each other to the artist, year, and title of a song on the radio, seeing who could be first to recall these ancient and indelible markers of our own pasts and creating new and permanent ones into our growing future.  This one eluded us both and, in those foggy days before The Google, we were stubbornly and stupidly stumped.  We knew we had the CD on the shelf at home, we knew every word, I even knew in my freakishly fickle and frequently brilliant memory banks that the guy’s last name started with an “A”.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb_hqexKkw8

 

We had to wait four loooong days until we got home to South Carolina and could reach for the shelf and the CD to find Rick Astley’s name.  For many years, like a permanently marring scratch on an LP, our brains stubbornly refused to recall poor Rick’s name though I’m happy to report that we both grin like Cheshire Cats when we hear it today and shout in unison “Rick Astley!”

Through the years, back and forth between us, on birthdays and anniversaries and occasions both momentous and mundane, we have included in our cards to each other song lyrics that have caused one and then the other of us to remember what we mean to each other and, as all good lyrics and melodies are intended to do, think fondly over one’s life to those people and places that mark the points of greatest fondness, love, satisfaction, and contentedness that constitute a life well lived, beyond all of one’s hope and dreams and into the hazy ether of an unexpected but hoped-for future together.

 

And now, twenty years on, through, really, only the very best of years one could have ever hoped for, we find ourselves today.  Our life and love has changed, as all living organisms do, but it’s not too cliché to say that it is all for the sake of a better, more personal and deeply imagined relationship than either of us had expected at the onset.

 

It’s an ongoing work-in-progress but one that deserves all the effort it requires and pays out, daily, all its rewards.

 

And so, as I was pounding away the miles on the Precor at the gym recently, another of our favorite bands took control of my brain for 3 plus minutes and the words seemed particularly relevant to this piece and to the man that I call mine: (gender corrected for political reason <g>) The band was Dakota Moon, a contemporary urban R&B blend band of the 1990’s with Darius Rucker in the lead.

 

Boy, you’re every breath I take,

Oh baby, Your love rules every move I make,

hmm baby And I know that you can’t read my mind

And baby, maybe

I Don’t say it as often as I should, but I really want it to be heard

When I say I love you that’s for good, you have my word

That day after day after all, I will always be true

That’s a promise I make to you
You, you take this heart of mine and make it better

I need you to Come and walk with me through this life forever

And I know these words are long over due

And baby, maybe I
Don’t say it as often as I should, but I really want it to be heard

When I say I love you that’s for good, you have my word

That day after day after all, I will always be true

That’s a promise I make to you
I may hold you, I may need you And baby, maybe I

Don’t say it as often as I should, but I really want it to be heard

When I say I love you that’s for good, you have my word

That day after day after all, I will always be true

That’s a promise I make to you
That’s a promise I make to you

A promise I make to you

A promise I make to you

 

Take a listen to Darius Rucker, the lead singer who, ironically, is today a breakout solo sensation in the world of…..wait for it…Country Music.  All good things last.

 

Happy Anniversary, Dave.

 

143

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2y5xh_-JFg

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Twenty Years On

  1. Lovely.

    Liz Rabiner Lippoff P 503-227-4428 C 971-235-0461 F 503-227-4431

    “My core belief is that if you’re complaining about something for more than three minutes, two minutes ago you should have done something about it.” Caitlin Moran

  2. My song for you is http://www.cmt.com/videos/lonestar/59315/amazed.jhtml

    Every time our eyes meet
    This feeling inside me
    Is almost more than I can take
    Baby when you touch me
    I can feel how much you love me
    And it just blows me away
    I’ve never been this close to anyone,
    Or anything
    I can hear your thoughts, I can see your dreams

    [Chorus]
    I don’t know how you do what you do
    I’m so in love with you
    It just keeps getting better
    I want to spend the rest of my life,
    with you by my side
    Forever and ever
    Every little thing that you do,
    Baby I’m amazed by you.

    The smell of your skin,
    The taste of your kiss,
    The way you whisper in the dark.
    Your hair all around me,
    Baby you surround me
    Touch every place in my heart
    And it feels like the first time
    Every time.
    I want to spend the whole night
    In your eyes

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