I cannot believe that seven years ago he was small enough to hold in my arms for the first time. My sweet second baby boy is growing up into a gentle heart and soul.

I cannot believe that Mike and I have been married for 10 years.  Ten years ago we said “I do” officially for the first time, after 4.5 years together, and a two year engagement we {finally} became legit. We also looked like babies. Seriously. Babies.

It has been 10 years of ups & downs, laughter & tears, welcoming new life & saying good-bye too soon and of all the joy that life can hold found in the chaos of the everyday.  We have been enjoying a {very} well loved life together. A life with no take backs and full of new beginnings. I cannot wait to see what the next 10 years brings & I am so thankful I get to spend my life with my best friend.

And to think there was a time we both were terrified of finding “The One”, silly kids.

Summer 1999

I got up early on Wednesday. It had been a few days since the “ring” came up & we still hadn’t talked anymore about it.  Instead, it hung in the air awkwardly as the moment of “when” (when would he ask, would he still ask) raced through my mind.

I decided that since I couldn’t go back to sleep & I was thinking about the “ring”, which was causing me to worry about how I had ruined the moment, that I’d take a shower. Yes, I took another shower.  If Godliness is next to cleanliness than in my anxiety I become a holy being in & of myself, given the excessive need to shower & clean everything in sight.  Our apartment after Sunday had become so clean you could eat off the floors, the walls & every other single surface that existed.

As I stepped out of the shower & was drying off, I could hear Mike moving in the other room.  I must have woken him with the shower.  I got dressed & made my way back to our room.  The 5 feet that separated those two rooms felt longer and shorter at the same time.  Largely because I was still feeling self-conscious.  Letting go & moving on have never been strong suits of mine.

When I walked into the room I saw Mike sitting on the bed.

“Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to wake you.  I couldn’t sleep & so I thought I’d get my shower in now.”

“That’s OK. I was up anyway. I have something to talk to you about.”

I sat on the bed next to him.

Great, he’s going to tell me that he doesn’t want to get married.  I ruined it. Here I had been panicking over the moment, about the thought of marriage, about all the what if’s:  What if I’m not ready? What if we’re too young? What if I never learn to cook, ever? What if we can’t have kids?  What if we have them?  Oh, wow…the list goes on & on.  But it’s a leap of love & faith.  And I’m ready to take that leap.  BUT now I ruined it. He’s going to tell me it’s over.

“OK.”

“I know that you’ve been thinking about what happened with the ring ad.  I wanted to talk to you about that. I don’t know a better time for us to talk & since we’re up I think we should now.”

“OK.”

For someone who usually can’t stop talking I found myself at a loss for words.

“Are you happy with me?”

“Yes”

OMG.  He’s not happy.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes”

Is this a test?  Did I pass? I could feel it getting warmer in the room.

He then got up & walked to his dresser.

What’s he doing?

He opened up the top drawer and reached in.

Is he?  Oh, I think he is.

Then he pulled out a ring box & walked back over to me.

He is.

“I bought this ring a little while ago, I’ve been waiting for the right moment.  After the other day I knew you knew I had a ring. I don’t know the right moment.  I just know…”

Big pause.

His voice was shaking.

His hands were shaking.

I could feel my eyes growing larger by the second.

I could feel my own hands shaking.

“OK.”

“I just know that when I think of my life, I think of you in it. When I think about the future, I think of you.  I see us.  I don’t see me, but I see you & I together.  Us.  I see us.  I see us having a family together, our kids laughing. I see our grandchildren running around playing.  I see us rocking on a porch old and gray together.  Wherever I turn in my life, I am with you & I can’t see my life or my future without you.”

“OK”

I could feel tears welling up in my saucer sized eyes as he sat down next to me. The ring box fumbling in his hands.

“Beth, I know I don’t have much right now to give you. I’m not wealthy & I may never be but I promise I will give you everything I do have.  I love you.  I promise to give you my life & my love for the rest of our days together if you will let me.  Elizabeth Rose, will you marry me?”

He opened the ring box.  There it was, the ring.  It looked just like the ad.

Suddenly, I didn’t care about the ad or my own self-induced awkwardness.  All that melted away in an instant.  Because what I cared about was him.  I didn’t need anything else.  I tried to shout a yes but my voice was shaky, my hands were shaky, I’m pretty sure the room was shaking at that moment.  The emotion of love that was present felt like a train rolling over me.

I put my hands up to his face, looking right into his eyes and found my voice.

“Yes. Yes, I will.  I love you. You didn’t even have to ask.”

At that point he started to laugh.

“Well, I wish I had known I didn’t have to ask that would have made this whole thing a lot easier.”

With that he took the ring out of the box & slipped in on my finger.

[this is part of my “how I met your father” series]

1999

We were settled into the new apartment.  We had raspberry walls this time. Every time I told someone about our walls I heard Prince singing in my head.  “She had a Raspberry Beret” and I wanted to dance just a little (Ok, a lot). One Sunday morning in our raspberry paradise, coffee in hand, flipping through the sales ads I stopped to look at a jewelry ad.

Mike looked over and asked “What do you think of that ring? It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

Umm…wait. When did he ever care about rings?  Unless it was a boxing ring & involved a crazy Mike Tyson story about Tyson biting ears off or threatening to eat children I’m not sure that I ever heard him mention the word ring before on his own. I had mentioned it once or twice, but him not so much. And when I brought it up before he had said we’d probably have to do a starter ring because everything was so expensive, IF we ever got formally engaged.

His question, for a man who could care less about pretty rings, should have been a GIANT red flag to me that I should sound excited. Instead I being painfully slow didn’t pick up on what he was saying. Instead, I looked back at the ring & thought it was OK, a pretty & simple ring.

So I said what I thought.

Aloud.

To Him.

Except I only said part of it.

I said…

“It’s OK.”

It was a simple white gold band with small diamond flecks circling around it.  However, I should have said “It is AMAZING! I LOVE IT! SO PRETTY!!”  But I didn’t.  Instead I said “OK.”

His face fell at my OK.  I had just sucker punched him with OK.

He looked at his coffee, all of 21 looking far older with his now furrowed brow, I could see his mind racing across his face.  “Oh, I thought you said you like simple jewelry. You never wear big rings, something like this is a “starter” ring, and I thought you’d like…” He stopped mid-sentence.

The room got quiet. We got quiet. Very, very quiet.  The shuffling of paper, the ease of our chatter, and shifting of our coffee had suddenly come to a screeching halt.  A pin drop could have been heard.  Every sound out the living room window was amplified.

I realized at that moment that the ad said “ENGAGEMENT RINGS”, he said “starter”, the past conversations, I saw his face all at once everything came crashing toward me.

I could hear the birds outside as if they were in the room with us, mocking my inability to realize that a man you live with, who has mentioned marriage & who asks you about rings isn’t making small talk!  I knew looking at him that there was a purpose.  I could tell there he had a ring.  He had THIS RING!!

Why couldn’t I have said “It’s beautiful!!”, why did I say OK?  I could hear that shrill voice in my head, the one that criticizes, pointing out flaws, saying “Way to go Beth! Way to hurt him, way to ruin your engagement & entire married life!! What an idiot! Why couldn’t you say something besides OK? Huh? Huh?”

With that I began to panic.

I began to sweat.

I really needed a shower.

Yes, apparently when the tough fall into a panic & realize they’ve inadvertently ruined “the moment” the tough get showerin’.  They give a kiss to their beloved, say “I love you”, & then they run away to take a shower.   Hoping when they emerge the awkward moment will be gone.

At least that’s what I did.  And it turns out awkward isn’t rinsed away in the shower.

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series]

1999

We had decided it was time to move.  Again.

Third time’s the apartment charm.

And so we began to look around.  This time we were looking to move outside the City.  We were leaving Detroit.

It was bittersweet.  I was excited to move. I was tired of the lack of grocery stores & strange men on our porch.  I was ready for a change & after the whole Alex situation I no longer felt comfortable at my old work.  Turns out Sarah wasn’t fond of me, go figure. Mike was also ready for a change.  He wanted to be able to go for evening walks & not think of where we should or shouldn’t walk.

But at the same time in our excitement and readiness for something different we were going to miss the City we met each other in.  The City we shared our first apartment in.  The City we started a home in.

After looking at about 100 apartments I got a call at my new work.  I was working as an optician & it was almost 9.   He told me that he had seen a small apartment with two bedrooms, a basement space with laundry in it that we’d have free access to.  Plus, it was just over a $100 more than our current rent, something we could actually afford.

It sounded like a dream.

Especially since all the other places we’d seen had been 1 bedrooms, with no storage, laundry was an arm & a leg (first-born for using the dryer) at twice the cost of our current place.  I think if we had each sold a kidney we’d have been golden for those places.

I could go & see it on my way home.  He gave me the number & after I finished talking to him I called.  I was on my way to see the apartment within the next 15 minutes.

It was one of two apartments on the back of a building being used for the landlord’s real estate business.  The neighborhood was quiet but near everything.  I walked up the stairs into the apartment.  It was small in its layout, not as much space as the current Detroit place but the basement area & laundry made up for that.  I mean a washer AND a dryer!  And we didn’t have to pay extra for it.  It was included.

It was perfect.  I told her that I loved it.  Within a month we were moved in.  Little did we know this was the apartment that we’d change & grow in ways that we could only dream of.

[this is part of my “how I met your father” series]

1999

Friday came and went.  Saturday came and went.  I thought that after telling Mike about what Alex said that maybe it was for nothing.  I had opened up this big hole in our life by telling him. But I couldn’t NOT tell him, what happened if Alex showed up?  I’d have to explain that & I had nothing to keep secret.

So I told him.  He was uncomfortable, but not upset.  He knew where I stood.

Then Sunday arrived.

The day was almost over, it was late.  I was waiting for Mike to come home & the phone rang.  I thought it was him, he was calling on his way home.  I answered it.

It wasn’t Mike.

“I’m outside.”

Alex said it so plainly, so matter of fact.  How do challenge a fact when you don’t know what it really means?

I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m inside. Guess you know that, since you called me. How come you’re calling me?”

Duh, I knew the answer.  Why, why, why do I ask questions that I don’t want to know the answer too.  Hadn’t I learned ANYTHING?!

“I’m leaving tonight.  Have you thought more about what I said? ”

I was so quiet, I didn’t want to answer that question.  My voice felt like it had been sucked from my body.  Why was he waiting?  Then for some reason I had Richard Marx in my head.  Why does my mind always create a soundtrack to every event.  Seriously, this is an illness of some sort. It must be.  I couldn’t focus on what was happening, but there was Casey Kasem playing Richard Marx of all people in my head.  Trust me, Casey even did an intro. Seriously, it’s gotta be an illness WHO THINKS LIKE THIS?

Finally I realized I had to answer. I mean the song is only so long. And I found my voice.

“I am staying here. I’m where I want to be, I love him. I’m happy, I don’t want to leave. I’m sorry Alex, I don’t know what else to really say. I feel bad because you are a really great guy, but I’m not the one.”

He was quiet, then laughed a little.

“I guess you know where you want to be then. I hope we could be friends still, maybe catch up when I’m visiting or whatever.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I hope he knows what he has with you.”

“I think he does, have a safe trip Alex.”

With that, we both knew that even if we talked again, it wasn’t going to be the same.  Sometimes that’s the risk of putting yourself out there, you never know the outcome, but there’s no turning back.

As I got off the phone, I heard Mike’s key in the door.  He was home.  And I was more certain than ever before that my home was with him.

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series]

1999

As I sank deeper into my chair, eyes wide but unable to see anything clearly I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.  How could he say the words “feel” & “about you” in the same sentence?  I couldn’t find words, I just stared at Alex. Seriously, when did it get so hot in here? Forget holding my feet to fire it felt more like a burning flame across my entire being.  I could feel my face becoming flushed with the heat of discomfort.

“It’s just that I’ve felt for a while like if I was going to leave & not tell you how I felt that I’d regret it so I’m telling you.  I think I’m falling in love you with you.”

Oh, God.  This can not be happening.  It has to be a dream. Plain & simple.  Things like this don’t happen to me. Things like this don’t happen to real people, they happen in 1980s movies.

The voice in my head was screaming: No!!!No!!!No!!! Please, let me wake up.  That’s it, I will just wake up.  My eyes closed for a minute.  When I open them I’ll be awake.

I opened them. Turns out I was always awake.  Damn it!

Alex was intently looking at me.  He wasn’t smiling, just looking. He looked like a man on a mission.

I felt like a woman pinned by reality. I can’t do this.  I think I just swallowed my heart as it jumped up into my throat only to have “falling in love” push it back down.  Plummeting down to my stomach, like the elevator cable snapped & there was my heart crashing down.

“Alex, I’m not sure what to really say.  I mean, we don’t really even know each other. It’s not that I don’t think you’re great, you are. But, um, I don’t want to hurt you.”

But before I could finish he cut me off.

“I know you’ve said before you love him, but how can you know that you really love him?  How do you know he really loves you? How do you know that it is forever?”

Before I could answer I was again interrupted, this time not by Alex.  I heard the restaurant door open & a voice call out to me.  As light hit his face there stood Mike, smile shining across his face, walking toward us. My mind began to race.  Oh, this isn’t good.  This is bad.  This is very bad.

Alex leaned forward & whispered  “If you change your mind. I’m leaving this weekend.  You can come with me. I will stop by before I go.”

With that he stood up and walked away.

“Hey, are you ready to go? Is everything OK? You look like you don’t feel well. Did that guy say something to upset you?” Mike asked.

I looked at him & for a second I thought I didn’t have to say anything. I had nine lives.  That semi-truck that just ran me over & backed over me didn’t end me. I had more lives. I could go on to live another day. I could ignore it. I could just ignore everything & go home without ever telling him what happened.  Like a dream that drifted away upon waking.  But I couldn’t do that.  Alex would show up & what would I do then?

“Can I talk to you when we get home?  Or at least not here. I don’t want to talk here anymore.”

“Anymore?  Uh, OK.”

He got quiet & looked at me with a confused smile.  God, I loved him. I stood up with him, grabbed my things & out we walked into the cool evening breeze.  Together we walked out.  Together.

Knowing I had to tell him what happened.  Knowing Alex would show back up.   What was he going to say, what would he do?  Wondering how I ended up here. I felt like I was a walking movie, all I kept thinking was how John Hughes would have written this so much better.  I mean SO much better.  Because this was just awkward, this had no funny lines or witty dialogue, this was my life.  

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series–if you love a love story feel free to dive on in]

1999

After my shifts at the restaurant I’d sit around with the other servers & bartenders chatting. I didn’t like leaving & going home to an empty apartment.  Mike often worked later than my shift ended & I wanted to wait with people versus waiting home alone.  Plus, if I waited then I wouldn’t have to walk home alone.  After the guy on our front porch cornered me I didn’t want to be alone walking.   Sometimes I’d wait there if it was later in the evening & he would come up.  Then we’d head home together.  I loved those nights.

While sitting there one night while waiting for Mike to meet me one night, Alex, one of the guys I worked with, mentioned he was leaving.

Moving away.  Off to New York to work there & make a change in his life.  I was sad to hear he was leaving I thought he was a nice guy & enjoyed talking with him, but thought it was a great move for him.  And of course I asked a million questions, my curiosity has always been known to get the better of me.

I asked: If he had friends there? Had he lived there before?  Would he go to school there too?  Was he going to set up an apartment before rolling into town?  And then if Sarah was excited to be moving.

I had foolishly assumed his girlfriend Sarah was moving with him.

I mean why wouldn’t she?  They were living together & had been together for a long time.  It made sense to me. You move as a couple.

His face looked strange, almost like I had put his feet to the fire at the mention of Sarah.

“No, Sarah isn’t coming with me.”

“Oh. Well, I know lots of people who’ve had good long distance relationships.”  Lie, I didn’t know anyone who had, but I was trying to pull my foot out of my mouth.  Except I had just shoved so far down that it was tickling my ribcage.

“Sarah & I aren’t going to be together anymore.  We’re breaking up.”  He looked down & his voice was quiet.

I’m such an idoit.  Why did I ask so many questions?  My mother was right, I ask way too many questions.

“I’m sorry.  I, I, I, I didn’t realize.  I…I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”   My mumbled & fumbled apology came tumbling out.

“It’s OK.  In fact, I needed to talk to you about it.”

Huh?  Me, what? I began to shift in my seat.  Suddenly I felt like my feet where being held to the fire.   When did it get so hot in here?  Why would he need to talk to me about Sarah, moving, breaking up?  Who talks to a co-worker about making a big decision like that? Who does that…I mean unless…Oh,no…Oh, no…Oh, no…

My mind was racing, like water rushing forward & crushing me where I sat.  He needs to talk to me, this whole situation it can’t be a good thing.  Oh, please don’t say this is about feelings.  Please, don’t say it. Please, please, please.  Please, don’t say it.

And then he said it.

“You look uncomfortable, I’m sorry I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable. I just need to tell you how I feel about you.”

At that moment I understood how the cat was killed. Curiosity came in the form of a surprise confession that apparently caused the cat to have a heart attack or maybe in a panic of running away didn’t pay attention to where she was going & was run over by a semi-truck.   The cat should have known better than to ask so many questions, her mother was right.

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series]

1999

We had a friend who was planning to get married in Vegas.  We were trying to figure out a way to go when the wedding came around.   I mean it was VEGAS BABY!!  While talking about going Mike said, straight faced & with all seriousness, “Why not get married while we’re there? We’ll elope.”

“Whaaaaaaattttt?????”

My eyes probably filled the entire top portion of my head while my gaping mouth swallowed the rest of me when saying that one word.  He had mentioned marriage before, when we were first dating.  In fact, it was mentioned when we *almost* broke-up.  Later when we went on our first vacation together it came up again.  But those times it was more “One day we might get married”  NOT “Hey you wanna?”

He looked back at me smiled & said “Yea, why not?  I mean we’re going to get married some day anyway.”

“We are?”

“Aren’t we?”

“Well, I don’t know.  You’ve never asked me.  And by ask I mean something more than, hey we are going to Vegas anyway so why not?”

We talked for a little bit longer.  This was the first real conversation about getting married.   A real lay it on the line, what are we doing in this relationship talk.  A where are we going? kind of talk, starts of innocent enough but then BAM.

I felt a little sea sick and unbelievably giddy at the same time. Getting married is, like, a BIG FREAKIN’ DEAL.  Marriage is for LIFE.  I mean I wanted to be with him for life, I didn’t doubt that.  But had serious freak out issues & fear over whether or not I could make a marriage work. What if he woke up one day & realized he hated me?  Or I hated him?  I was a disaster, the fear over “what if” made me terrified.  I had seen a lot of people who seemed to be in love, only to walk away.  But the excitement over the idea of knowing we’d be saying to the world that we were in this FOR LIFE, that I’d be HIS wife.  I got giddy over the idea of our teeth sitting on the night stand side by side one day years from now. Real love not something that was just wild hormones run amok.

Of course I would have married him right then & there sitting on the big red couch.  Probably with the creepy neighbor taking long range photos of our ceremony.

However, it turns out money for a flight & the ability to get time off work wasn’t in our favor. We didn’t get married then. Probably saving our mothers joint freaking out over their kids deciding to first shack up, then run off to Vegas & not even call first.

But the seeds were there. We had talked.  No official engagement but now it was out in the open.  We both were in this thing for life.

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series]

Winter 1998

Working, living & going to school in the City was an interesting experience.  From the stolen cars to our neighbor who lived on the first floor.  His name was Charles, but sometime he came dressed as Charlene.  A big (I mean super big muscled) man with a 5 o’clock shadow in a sequined dress.  A vision of blue sequins dancing before us.

Blue sequined Charles who came to my defense once when I came home from work & had a guy who was drunk corner me on the front stoop.  He was rambling on about what he did for me & how I didn’t appreciate it.  I had never seen him before, but I became a stand-in for every slight & failure that he had seen in his life. I was terrified trying to get my key in the door and there was Charles.  He came on out. He stood there in heels, make-up partway on, with his giant muscles showing & asked if there was a problem.

Yes, our apartment building & the area around it was full of characters.

Apparently we had become entertainment for someone as I found out one day at work.  A new girl started at the restaurant.  She was a talker, I mean she made me look quiet.  One day she was talking about how she didn’t have a T.V. & her boyfriend, who she lived with, worked a lot.  She was home alone often & so she people watched.

Then she started talking about a building she watched, a building that when she passed she would see the man living downstairs heading out.  The man seemed to match my neighbor Charles.  But hey, it’s a big place who knows how many well muscled black men wearing blue sequined dresses there are out there?  Maybe more than one.  But I soon found out, she wasn’t talking about someone different. 

Because she started to talk about how a young couple she would watch was visible above the corner party store.  They had a bright red living room and the cutest little kitten who would sit in their window looking out.   She talked about how their dining room had no real furniture in it & that she couldn’t see into other rooms but would wonder what they looked like.  As she was talking I could feel the heat of embarrassment, awkwardness, and violation rolled into one big ball rise up from the pit of my stomach to cover my face in a blaze of red.

She was talking about US!  My Persephone, my boyfriend, me and our home!

I couldn’t say anything.  I just stared.  Then a co-worker looked at me and realized the same thing I had.  He said “Hey, Beth isn’t that you she’s watching?”  She started to laugh & told me she was glad to finally met me.  I still wasn’t sure what to say.

I mean how do you handle that situation? I mean it’s one thing to watch as people pass by you & take in how varied our world is.  It is a totally different thing to sit and watch an apartment, a couple and do so on a regular basis. That is something out of a movie.  The kind where you shout at the girl “NO, DON’T RUN UPSTAIRS!!!!!! DON’T!!!!!!” Only to watch her run upstairs and meet a death of being burned alive by a curling iron or something equally ridiculous.

I came home from work that night and told Mike.  He was just as uncomfortable about the whole situation as I was.  He never dreamed of being a stand-in for a television and watched without knowing he was on display.  We decided to change some things in the apartment. The next day I put up some form of curtains that were closed on a regular basis. I also was secretly happy when my boss said the girl didn’t work out & wouldn’t be returning to work.  But I couldn’t help but wonder if she still tried to tune in to watch.

[this is part of my  “how I met your father” series]