Twenty-six years ago today, I met the person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Well, ok, I didn't think that (the "life" thing) right then - in that moment. But soon after meeting, I was convinced that we would spend eternity together. She was easy-going, fun, witty, smart, well liked, kind, hard working and the best cook I'd ever met. I think I gained 50 lbs that first year we were together. But it didn't matter. She didn't love me for my smoking hot body. Nope! She was many things, but never shallow or superficial. From the beginning, things were comfortable with her. I could truly just be myself. Nancy was not what I would call materialistic. The first time I spent the night at her apartment, I wanted to take a shower. I could find exactly one towel and it was an old Budweiser beach towel that was so worn out it had more holes in it then I could count. No, I'm not kidding. But it didn't matter. She was perfectly content with that one towel. She was happy. What she cared more about was living life, having fun, and smiling. It was that smile, that beautiful - gap-between-the-two-front-teeth - smile that I first fell in love with. Well that and her beautiful blue eyes. I think I was the first to say, "I love you." In fact, I know I was. But she followed right behind and soon we were moving in together. Neither of us had much to tell you the truth. I think I made the bigger paycheck - $11,900 a year and she made about $7.00 an hour. It was 1986. It was enough for the two of us to live on because we simply didn't have expensive needs. What we lacked in money and materialistic things, we made up for with love. We really, really loved one another. In the beginning, she worked the night shift and I worked days. I would stay up til midnight waiting for her to come home. And often we would then stay up til 3:00 a.m. just talking and laughing. Whenever we were apart, I missed her madly. Weekends were our "quality" time and they passed far too quickly. After that first year together, when we knew - really knew - that we'd be together forever, we - with the help of our parents - bought our first little house. . . our first little home. It was a small cottage really nestled in a beautiful wooded area. It was common for a family of deer to be standing in our backyard as the sun came up each day. We had bunnies and squirrels and fox and coon and possums and - did I mention deer? It was quaint. It was quiet. It was home. Soon our little family grew by two. Nikki, our golden retriever, came first followed very quickly by Kallie, our mutt who we suspected was a husky/german shepherd mix but looked very much like a wolf. All four of us - all 600 lbs of us - would sleep in this teeny, tiny double bed. It was toasty warm on cold winter nights and hotter than heck during the long summer months. But we were happy. After 10 years, our incomes grew, our tastes changed and we decided that we had simply outgrown our cute little cottage. So we did what many families do when they grow, we bought a new - bigger - home out in the suburbs. No more trees. No more woods. No more deer. As excited as we were about our new home, we were also very sad to be leaving our original one. The one where we fell more and more in love. The one where our babies first lived. The first year in our new home took some adjusting. Learning to live in all that extra space, learning to live in a neighborhood where the neighbors were too close for comfort, learning to drive all those extra miles to work - well, it all took some adjusting. And I'm not so sure that we ever did. It was about this time, that we started growing apart. There was a distance between us that just sort of appeared out of thin air. I'm not sure why it happened, it just did. She started doing her thing and I started doing mine. No longer were we excited to see one another at the end of the day. No longer were we willing to stay up half the night talking and laughing. No longer did we enjoy one another's company. We just sort of took each other for granted. Never, ever did I have a doubt that she would be there for me until the end of time. And I'm sure if you asked her, and if she was being honest, she would have said the same thing about me. But something in our relationship changed. For the worse. We became like strangers to one another. Her new best friend became the local bar and my new best friend because the casino. We became disrespectful toward one another. We each, in our own way, became disrespectful to ourselves. And we grew further and further apart. To the point of no return. There was just no getting back. Where had our love gone? Where had our respect for one another gone? Where had our common ground gone? It simply disappeared as if had never been. So sad. To spend all those years with someone, to create so many memories, and then wake up one morning and have it gone. Poof! All gone. I don't regret having met her. I don't regret having loved her. I don't regret the 24 years we had together. Those 24 years, that relationship, helped shape who I am today. In a way, it made me. She made me and I made her. We were just kids back in the day - the day we first met. In many ways, we grew up together. It saddens me greatly that it didn't last. That we couldn't overcome the distance that grew between us. That we couldn't find a way to salvage what we had and get back to our roots. They say you can never go back. And I guess that's probably true. You can't go back. But you can look back. You can try not to repeat the mistakes you made. You can remember the good times with fondness and you can remember the bad times for what they were - bad. You can work hard not to repeat the bad. As I write this, I can't help but wonder if we let material things destroy us. Literally, we had nothing when we first met. And we were happy. We had each other and that was all we needed. We traded in her beat up beach towel for a nice, new, fluffy set of matching towels and I do believe that, that was the beginning of the end. Should have kept the beach towel. While it would now be close to 30 years old, it likely survived. We did not. And if I'm being honest I have to say, that saddens me greatly. It makes my heart ache this horrible, horrible ache. And when I think of it all, I cry.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
One Worn Out Towel
Twenty-six years ago today, I met the person I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Well, ok, I didn't think that (the "life" thing) right then - in that moment. But soon after meeting, I was convinced that we would spend eternity together. She was easy-going, fun, witty, smart, well liked, kind, hard working and the best cook I'd ever met. I think I gained 50 lbs that first year we were together. But it didn't matter. She didn't love me for my smoking hot body. Nope! She was many things, but never shallow or superficial. From the beginning, things were comfortable with her. I could truly just be myself. Nancy was not what I would call materialistic. The first time I spent the night at her apartment, I wanted to take a shower. I could find exactly one towel and it was an old Budweiser beach towel that was so worn out it had more holes in it then I could count. No, I'm not kidding. But it didn't matter. She was perfectly content with that one towel. She was happy. What she cared more about was living life, having fun, and smiling. It was that smile, that beautiful - gap-between-the-two-front-teeth - smile that I first fell in love with. Well that and her beautiful blue eyes. I think I was the first to say, "I love you." In fact, I know I was. But she followed right behind and soon we were moving in together. Neither of us had much to tell you the truth. I think I made the bigger paycheck - $11,900 a year and she made about $7.00 an hour. It was 1986. It was enough for the two of us to live on because we simply didn't have expensive needs. What we lacked in money and materialistic things, we made up for with love. We really, really loved one another. In the beginning, she worked the night shift and I worked days. I would stay up til midnight waiting for her to come home. And often we would then stay up til 3:00 a.m. just talking and laughing. Whenever we were apart, I missed her madly. Weekends were our "quality" time and they passed far too quickly. After that first year together, when we knew - really knew - that we'd be together forever, we - with the help of our parents - bought our first little house. . . our first little home. It was a small cottage really nestled in a beautiful wooded area. It was common for a family of deer to be standing in our backyard as the sun came up each day. We had bunnies and squirrels and fox and coon and possums and - did I mention deer? It was quaint. It was quiet. It was home. Soon our little family grew by two. Nikki, our golden retriever, came first followed very quickly by Kallie, our mutt who we suspected was a husky/german shepherd mix but looked very much like a wolf. All four of us - all 600 lbs of us - would sleep in this teeny, tiny double bed. It was toasty warm on cold winter nights and hotter than heck during the long summer months. But we were happy. After 10 years, our incomes grew, our tastes changed and we decided that we had simply outgrown our cute little cottage. So we did what many families do when they grow, we bought a new - bigger - home out in the suburbs. No more trees. No more woods. No more deer. As excited as we were about our new home, we were also very sad to be leaving our original one. The one where we fell more and more in love. The one where our babies first lived. The first year in our new home took some adjusting. Learning to live in all that extra space, learning to live in a neighborhood where the neighbors were too close for comfort, learning to drive all those extra miles to work - well, it all took some adjusting. And I'm not so sure that we ever did. It was about this time, that we started growing apart. There was a distance between us that just sort of appeared out of thin air. I'm not sure why it happened, it just did. She started doing her thing and I started doing mine. No longer were we excited to see one another at the end of the day. No longer were we willing to stay up half the night talking and laughing. No longer did we enjoy one another's company. We just sort of took each other for granted. Never, ever did I have a doubt that she would be there for me until the end of time. And I'm sure if you asked her, and if she was being honest, she would have said the same thing about me. But something in our relationship changed. For the worse. We became like strangers to one another. Her new best friend became the local bar and my new best friend because the casino. We became disrespectful toward one another. We each, in our own way, became disrespectful to ourselves. And we grew further and further apart. To the point of no return. There was just no getting back. Where had our love gone? Where had our respect for one another gone? Where had our common ground gone? It simply disappeared as if had never been. So sad. To spend all those years with someone, to create so many memories, and then wake up one morning and have it gone. Poof! All gone. I don't regret having met her. I don't regret having loved her. I don't regret the 24 years we had together. Those 24 years, that relationship, helped shape who I am today. In a way, it made me. She made me and I made her. We were just kids back in the day - the day we first met. In many ways, we grew up together. It saddens me greatly that it didn't last. That we couldn't overcome the distance that grew between us. That we couldn't find a way to salvage what we had and get back to our roots. They say you can never go back. And I guess that's probably true. You can't go back. But you can look back. You can try not to repeat the mistakes you made. You can remember the good times with fondness and you can remember the bad times for what they were - bad. You can work hard not to repeat the bad. As I write this, I can't help but wonder if we let material things destroy us. Literally, we had nothing when we first met. And we were happy. We had each other and that was all we needed. We traded in her beat up beach towel for a nice, new, fluffy set of matching towels and I do believe that, that was the beginning of the end. Should have kept the beach towel. While it would now be close to 30 years old, it likely survived. We did not. And if I'm being honest I have to say, that saddens me greatly. It makes my heart ache this horrible, horrible ache. And when I think of it all, I cry.
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