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Story Time
Feb. 14th, 2004 12:26 pmOnce upon a time, perhaps a dozen years ago now, a small elfin girl who was younger than she wanted to be, older than she seemed, and much less mature than she thought she was moved to Massachusetts to go to college. Shortly after she arrived, she met a tall and strange boy who juggled kooshes and once, at a very important time, dared her to be happy. This story is not about him, though. But he lived across the hall from another tall strange person, who was in a class with another tall strange person who was looking for players to start an AD&D game. So the koosh-juggling boy told the small elfin girl that she should go talk to the tall strange AD&D man. And that is how I met my fiance.
I never would have believed you if you told me then that I would marry him someday. I was seventeen, full of my own differentness and too defensive for my own good. He was five years older than me, a grad student to my just-graduated-from-high-school awkwardness. He was tall and shaggy and (I thought) much more worldly-wise, and he had an unpronounceable name, and we were both shy enough to be scared and intimidated by each other.
Even so, nearly every Sunday for three years I played AD&D in his room at the grad student house. For the first year, that was all. I'd scurry downhill right before the game started, and hurry out as soon as it was done. Somewhere around the second year, though, he stopped being quite as intimidating, and somehow I didn't quite need to run away as quickly. By the end of my junior year, his room had become a quiet haven, and I trusted him more than almost anyone.
The year after that, he rented a house with the koosh-juggling boy and the Mighty Wood-Chuck, and I think I spent more time there than I did in my own dorm. He was always there when I needed someone, to lean on or to talk to or just to waste time. He introduced me to Babylon 5, and covered my eyes for the creepy bits in the X-Files. I learned that he had a beautiful singing voice, and that his shoulder was the most comfortable place in the world to rest my head, and that when I talked to him, he actually listened to me as if I were a person and not a nuisance.
When I didn't get into vet school on my first round of applications, he was the person who sat with me while I cried myself to sleep on his bed, then tucked me in and slept on the sofa himself. He made me believe it would work out. Perhaps a month later I broke up with my boyfriend and asked him out. (As a note, this is also when I learned that, of all of the possible places and times to ask a person to date you, 'in the middle of a 250-mile car ride' is not only nowhere near the top five, it's probably down at the bottom next to 'at their spouse's funeral.')
We've survived grad school, long distance, and living together. We've survived the restructuring of our social groups, and of our own relationship. We've made it through tragedies and joys and more complications than I ever would have imagined possible. He still sings with me, and his shoulder is still the best pillow I can imagine, and he still makes me believe that, whatever is wrong, it will work out.
I love you, darling. Happy valentine's day.
I never would have believed you if you told me then that I would marry him someday. I was seventeen, full of my own differentness and too defensive for my own good. He was five years older than me, a grad student to my just-graduated-from-high-school awkwardness. He was tall and shaggy and (I thought) much more worldly-wise, and he had an unpronounceable name, and we were both shy enough to be scared and intimidated by each other.
Even so, nearly every Sunday for three years I played AD&D in his room at the grad student house. For the first year, that was all. I'd scurry downhill right before the game started, and hurry out as soon as it was done. Somewhere around the second year, though, he stopped being quite as intimidating, and somehow I didn't quite need to run away as quickly. By the end of my junior year, his room had become a quiet haven, and I trusted him more than almost anyone.
The year after that, he rented a house with the koosh-juggling boy and the Mighty Wood-Chuck, and I think I spent more time there than I did in my own dorm. He was always there when I needed someone, to lean on or to talk to or just to waste time. He introduced me to Babylon 5, and covered my eyes for the creepy bits in the X-Files. I learned that he had a beautiful singing voice, and that his shoulder was the most comfortable place in the world to rest my head, and that when I talked to him, he actually listened to me as if I were a person and not a nuisance.
When I didn't get into vet school on my first round of applications, he was the person who sat with me while I cried myself to sleep on his bed, then tucked me in and slept on the sofa himself. He made me believe it would work out. Perhaps a month later I broke up with my boyfriend and asked him out. (As a note, this is also when I learned that, of all of the possible places and times to ask a person to date you, 'in the middle of a 250-mile car ride' is not only nowhere near the top five, it's probably down at the bottom next to 'at their spouse's funeral.')
We've survived grad school, long distance, and living together. We've survived the restructuring of our social groups, and of our own relationship. We've made it through tragedies and joys and more complications than I ever would have imagined possible. He still sings with me, and his shoulder is still the best pillow I can imagine, and he still makes me believe that, whatever is wrong, it will work out.
I love you, darling. Happy valentine's day.
