I was 16, sunk down low in my seat absent mindedly scanning the sea of boys I knew as they sang in our darkened High School auditorium when my gaze rested on him...
The shy boy who sat ahead of me first hour in government class one semester the year before. The boy with the deep set brown eyes that were so steady and unswerving, that I did my best writing nonsense answers on our peer-graded current events quiz, just to get him to crack a smile. I think I even succeeded, once. In the year since, he skirted around my atmosphere lighting and building the sets of the theatre productions I acted in, but I couldn't be sure we'd ever even spoken after government class had ended.
I looked at him now under the stage lights, in the rented choir appointed tuxedo and was surprised to feel a slight flutter. After the concert I found him in the crowd and announced to him and the small group of friends surrounding him -
"I'm going to marry you some day."
Never fazed and by now used to my tactics to raise a response from him, he just nodded and said,
"Looking forward to it."
Our lives went on as before, only now if we passed I would nod and say in greeting, "Husband" and he would reply, "Wife." Our mutual friends laughing at the unlikely pairing of the bubbly center-stage girl and the boy more comfortable in shadow and silence. That year we signed our year books "To my wife and husband to be".
17 years, 13 of those spent in marriage, two kids, and many adventures in between, it's still one of my favorite love notes. Full of intuition and improbability. And most decidedly 'us'.
We're celebrating Love in all its forms tomorrow - forever love, most decidedly NOT forever, love of self, of family and all the crazy that ensues in the pursuit of - love.
Listen on-air at 11:00am to 91.1 The Avenue as we kick off our Love Notes day with a wonderful love story that started and rekindled on Lawrence University grounds, and then come to The Draw in Appleton to hear 16 more community tellers share their love notes at our Storycatchers Live event! (All the info can be found HERE)
