18 Years Yesterday ...
As of yesterday, Bobby and I have been together for 18 years.
I have told the story before of how we got together at the ages of 14 (me) and just-barely-15 (him) at a dance at our nerdy math-science magnet school, so I won't repeat it now. Suffice to say that we have been together for well over half of our lives by now with no plans on changing that anytime soon. I am still as crazy about that man as I was the day in ninth grade that my best friend typed on my graphing calculator, "You are in love with Bobby," and I realized that I was (in teenage terms anyway!) indeed in love with Bobby.
I'm going to beg preemptive pardon for the cheesy sentimentality that follows ... I connect with Bobby as I never have with another human. He is both my best friend and the partner I've chosen to make my life with. I never thought I'd want to marry anyone. (I never thought anyone would want to marry me!) I test as 100% introvert, and since I work a job that requires me to be "on" socially for at least a few hours a day (my students don't let me off easily on that either!), then I need a break from people more often than not, and Bobby is the only person who doesn't count in that. I often tell him that he is just as good as being alone, which sounds awful, unless you know what it's like to live in an extremely introverted brain, and then you understand that it's actually the highest compliment I could pay. We are at the point where we often joke that there is a shared brain that floats between us because one of us will think something and the other will say it, or we will speak in unison. He has seen me at my worst and still manages to love me.
Our anniversary was pretty low-key but good all the same. We went to the farmer's market in the morning and for lunch at a local cafe, then had a bunch of errands to run that mostly involved procuring food for various animals. We went to the gym and to pick up our friend's dog, who we were watching yesterday. We both had chores to do in the afternoon, but we had a date that night: We went to a local Asian restaurant that serves great Malaysian food, then to the movies to see Maleficent (don't laugh! we both enjoyed it!), and then for ice cream at that Carroll County standard, Hoffman's. We went home and were supposed to have a firepit, but the wood was still damp from the rains earlier in the week, so the firepit was hella lame! Putting a votive candle in the firepit would have given an equivalent amount of light and warmth! But it was okay because, after our busy day, we were both yawning by then and went to bed pretty early. Bobby also wrote me a beautiful alliterative poem, which he read for me. It was a good day.
I have been meaning for a while to scan in some old photos from high school. Our anniversary was a good excuse to finally do that!
June 1996. Our very first picture together, taken in a photo booth at King's Dominion theme park in Virginia. This was one week after that fateful dance when we started "going out." Remember photo booths? Not those newfangled things but the old-school ones that would spit out three low-quality Polaroid-type photos? ("Low-quality" like they put a big white blotch on the face of one of the people?) In this pre-cell-phone-photo era (well before "selfie" became common parlance), having a photo-booth picture of yourself with your crush? OMG, that was major!
October 1996. Our first formal dance together, Homecoming. We were both fifteen and in the tenth grade. This dance was such a huge deal to me at the time. I remember my cousin coming over to do my hair and makeup, as I was then inept at those things, and my mom staging this grand entrance for me coming down the steps once Bobby and his family arrived.
This was taken at that Homecoming dance.
May 1999. Our friend Marlies from high school posted this picture in a comment on Bobby's Facebook post yesterday about our anniversary. This was our senior picnic. I remember that we had the AP Biology exam that morning and then went to the picnic out on the soccer fields.
May 1999. Our senior prom photo. My clearest memory from senior prom involved getting in trouble with the limo driver--15 of us chipped in on a limo together--for climbing out of the sunroof on the Baltimore Beltway. I don't know how I didn't mess up that hairdo; the stylist must have used a ton of hairspray. Ah, youth.
November 2004. Our wedding picture, taken in our first apartment in Ellicott City. We were married at the county courthouse and a whole 12 people were in attendance. (I can never remember what year we were married in but, omg, we're coming up on ten years this November! Eeek!)
2006. At the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I just went though hundreds of pictures from the same year from when we went to Puerto Rico, and we had none of us together. I think that was the trip that inspired me to insist that we start trying to include ourselves more in our trip photos! So Ren Fest it is.
September 2008. Our first visit to my sister and sister-in-law in England! Obviously, I didn't learn much (maybe a little something) from Puerto Rico, because this is the only picture of us together on that trip. This was taken at Raby Castle.
July 2009. Have just successfully poured two pints o' plain at the Guinness factory tour in Dublin, Ireland.
August 2010. Raising the sails on the Alliance of Yorktown.
March 2012. Back in England, on Holy Island!
December 2013. Back in England again! Fucked up on New Year's Eve.
May 2014. The most recent picture I have of us together. Chaperoning our school's senior prom.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/340267.html
I have told the story before of how we got together at the ages of 14 (me) and just-barely-15 (him) at a dance at our nerdy math-science magnet school, so I won't repeat it now. Suffice to say that we have been together for well over half of our lives by now with no plans on changing that anytime soon. I am still as crazy about that man as I was the day in ninth grade that my best friend typed on my graphing calculator, "You are in love with Bobby," and I realized that I was (in teenage terms anyway!) indeed in love with Bobby.
I'm going to beg preemptive pardon for the cheesy sentimentality that follows ... I connect with Bobby as I never have with another human. He is both my best friend and the partner I've chosen to make my life with. I never thought I'd want to marry anyone. (I never thought anyone would want to marry me!) I test as 100% introvert, and since I work a job that requires me to be "on" socially for at least a few hours a day (my students don't let me off easily on that either!), then I need a break from people more often than not, and Bobby is the only person who doesn't count in that. I often tell him that he is just as good as being alone, which sounds awful, unless you know what it's like to live in an extremely introverted brain, and then you understand that it's actually the highest compliment I could pay. We are at the point where we often joke that there is a shared brain that floats between us because one of us will think something and the other will say it, or we will speak in unison. He has seen me at my worst and still manages to love me.
Our anniversary was pretty low-key but good all the same. We went to the farmer's market in the morning and for lunch at a local cafe, then had a bunch of errands to run that mostly involved procuring food for various animals. We went to the gym and to pick up our friend's dog, who we were watching yesterday. We both had chores to do in the afternoon, but we had a date that night: We went to a local Asian restaurant that serves great Malaysian food, then to the movies to see Maleficent (don't laugh! we both enjoyed it!), and then for ice cream at that Carroll County standard, Hoffman's. We went home and were supposed to have a firepit, but the wood was still damp from the rains earlier in the week, so the firepit was hella lame! Putting a votive candle in the firepit would have given an equivalent amount of light and warmth! But it was okay because, after our busy day, we were both yawning by then and went to bed pretty early. Bobby also wrote me a beautiful alliterative poem, which he read for me. It was a good day.
I have been meaning for a while to scan in some old photos from high school. Our anniversary was a good excuse to finally do that!
June 1996. Our very first picture together, taken in a photo booth at King's Dominion theme park in Virginia. This was one week after that fateful dance when we started "going out." Remember photo booths? Not those newfangled things but the old-school ones that would spit out three low-quality Polaroid-type photos? ("Low-quality" like they put a big white blotch on the face of one of the people?) In this pre-cell-phone-photo era (well before "selfie" became common parlance), having a photo-booth picture of yourself with your crush? OMG, that was major!
October 1996. Our first formal dance together, Homecoming. We were both fifteen and in the tenth grade. This dance was such a huge deal to me at the time. I remember my cousin coming over to do my hair and makeup, as I was then inept at those things, and my mom staging this grand entrance for me coming down the steps once Bobby and his family arrived.
This was taken at that Homecoming dance.
May 1999. Our friend Marlies from high school posted this picture in a comment on Bobby's Facebook post yesterday about our anniversary. This was our senior picnic. I remember that we had the AP Biology exam that morning and then went to the picnic out on the soccer fields.
May 1999. Our senior prom photo. My clearest memory from senior prom involved getting in trouble with the limo driver--15 of us chipped in on a limo together--for climbing out of the sunroof on the Baltimore Beltway. I don't know how I didn't mess up that hairdo; the stylist must have used a ton of hairspray. Ah, youth.
November 2004. Our wedding picture, taken in our first apartment in Ellicott City. We were married at the county courthouse and a whole 12 people were in attendance. (I can never remember what year we were married in but, omg, we're coming up on ten years this November! Eeek!)
2006. At the Maryland Renaissance Festival. I just went though hundreds of pictures from the same year from when we went to Puerto Rico, and we had none of us together. I think that was the trip that inspired me to insist that we start trying to include ourselves more in our trip photos! So Ren Fest it is.
September 2008. Our first visit to my sister and sister-in-law in England! Obviously, I didn't learn much (maybe a little something) from Puerto Rico, because this is the only picture of us together on that trip. This was taken at Raby Castle.
July 2009. Have just successfully poured two pints o' plain at the Guinness factory tour in Dublin, Ireland.
August 2010. Raising the sails on the Alliance of Yorktown.
March 2012. Back in England, on Holy Island!
December 2013. Back in England again! Fucked up on New Year's Eve.
May 2014. The most recent picture I have of us together. Chaperoning our school's senior prom.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
http://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/340267.html