today is our anniversary…

Can it really be twenty-four years?

Here’s a photo of us on our big day. This is one of the only close-ups I have of us on our wedding day, which is sort of sad, but true. All that money we shelled out to a photographer that was supposedly one of the best, and we ended up with lot of shots of everyone but us, actually together. Ah, what a whirlwind day.

I was twenty-eight and Mr. Moss was twenty-five. We had drove in from Los Angeles for our wedding because we were happily living there, while I went to graduate school and worked, and he trudged along as a newbie broker in the finance world.

We had both grown up in Sacramento, California and finally met during college while we were waiting tables at a local dinner house. I still remember the first time I noticed him.

I was sitting in our restaurant’s Back Room, the place where all the waiters hung out after our shifts while we folded napkins and counted our tips. Suddenly, I could hear a deep, bellowing laugh coming from the hallway and it was his voice. And then he was in the room, filling up the space with his exuberant energy and asking us dinner waiters if he could have any of our shifts. At that time, he only worked lunches. And I thought him terribly brazen, especially when he asked me. Of course not, I said, half laughing at his gall. I was living on my own and paying my way through school, and I wasn’t in the position to give away any of my shifts, especially to someone who seemed so brash and confident. And quite adorable, in an annoying kind of way.

But the chemistry was undeniable.

He was so damn funny. And interesting. After work, we had long, meandering conversations that never seemed to have a beginning or an end. I found these discussions utterly intoxicating, because up to this point, I had only known men of the strong and silent variety. So I simply loved the fact that he talked. A lot. About everything.

We both came from a family of brothers. We argued about politics and religion. We had both read Siddhartha. He called me “little girl” which I hated, because his girlfriend at the time, was a glorious five feet nine inches tall. We left little notes on each other’s cars. He wrote me a poem and we talked about our dreams, and traveling and someday swimming the Nile.

Only he wasn’t ready to break up with his girlfriend when I was ready. And much later when he was ready, I had a boyfriend. It went on like this for awhile and we both got hurt.

He came looking for me one last time. We had stood in the pouring rain in a field on Fair Oaks Boulevard and he had demanded an answer to his “now or never” question, otherwise, he was heading to Los Angeles.

And when I said “no,” he really did leave.

In the end, the thing that haunted me was the possibility of having regrets. I simply never wanted to wonder, “What if?”

So I packed my bags and headed to Los Angeles to be with the one guy that my family disapproved, because it felt right. I had absolutely no evidence that it could work because we hadn’t actually been a legitimate couple before. Ever. Our relationship had consisted of being one long flirtatious affair stuffed in-between our “real” relationships with others, and it had left us both with questions.

In retrospect, it was a huge gamble.

But here we are. Twenty-four years later. Yikes. That makes us sound so old.

In fact, these days when Mr. Moss calls me “little girl,” I actually laugh. Mostly because I know he’s the ONLY person on this earth who would possibly refer to me, at my chronological age, as a ‘girl.’

Which makes him a one-in-a-million guy (well, actually one-in-seven billion). But I always knew he was something special. This post is for him.

Honey, I always knew it was you.

Happy Anniversary

I love you,

R/C-^

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: husband,anniversary story,love and marriage