Six Years
The breeze from the ocean felt subtly cool and the palms seemed to move in rhythm with the street performers. Waikiki was a paradise unlike my usual paradise in Texas. I had found sidewalk cafes with beautiful vistas and good food. I had plans to tour the WWII installations in Diamond Head, plans to walk new beaches and go snorkeling again at Hanauma Bay. It was my second trip to Hawaii and I was having a miserable time.
Julie and I had been constant friends and I felt blue without her. Several months earlier I had phoned her while on a trip to Alaska and I was fine. Something had changed between the two trips. The details and sequence of events have been muddled and lost in my memory but something significant changed and I was well aware of it..
Over the previous few years I had been asking people whose opinions I respected for their definitions of love. One psychologist, a co-worker at a university in Kentucky, quickly and confidently replied. “To love is to want to be with and to do for.”
I was having a miserable time in Hawaii because Julie wasn’t with me and I couldn’t share the sunsets, beaches, music, discoveries and experiences with her.
Six years ago today we were married. It was a Monday. We arranged for an elderly friend in his eighties who had been a missionary to Brazil to perform the ceremony. We worked a full day and met Gerald and Janet at Julie’s apartment at 6 PM and were married. The next morning we went to work with plans for a honeymoon trip in October.
For three years – yes, literally three years – after the wedding I would occasionally say “We really did it! I can’t believe we did it!” I would look at her while she was sleeping and think “I’ll spend the rest of my life with her. That’s strange. It’s hard to believe.” After 25 years of a bad marriage and several years living by myself, I was slow to adjust.
Today, I can’t remember my life before her. She’s beside me now and has yielded to sleep. I look at her and think “I’ll spend the rest of my life with her. That seems too good to be true.”
Two years ago we celebrated in Moab, Utah. Last year we went to a B&B in Sedona. This year we spent the weekend near Tucson. We haven’t been to Hawaii together but that will happen some day.
Life is good! Much, much better than I ever imagined possible at one time.
Julie and I had been constant friends and I felt blue without her. Several months earlier I had phoned her while on a trip to Alaska and I was fine. Something had changed between the two trips. The details and sequence of events have been muddled and lost in my memory but something significant changed and I was well aware of it..
Over the previous few years I had been asking people whose opinions I respected for their definitions of love. One psychologist, a co-worker at a university in Kentucky, quickly and confidently replied. “To love is to want to be with and to do for.”
I was having a miserable time in Hawaii because Julie wasn’t with me and I couldn’t share the sunsets, beaches, music, discoveries and experiences with her.
Six years ago today we were married. It was a Monday. We arranged for an elderly friend in his eighties who had been a missionary to Brazil to perform the ceremony. We worked a full day and met Gerald and Janet at Julie’s apartment at 6 PM and were married. The next morning we went to work with plans for a honeymoon trip in October.
For three years – yes, literally three years – after the wedding I would occasionally say “We really did it! I can’t believe we did it!” I would look at her while she was sleeping and think “I’ll spend the rest of my life with her. That’s strange. It’s hard to believe.” After 25 years of a bad marriage and several years living by myself, I was slow to adjust.
Today, I can’t remember my life before her. She’s beside me now and has yielded to sleep. I look at her and think “I’ll spend the rest of my life with her. That seems too good to be true.”
Two years ago we celebrated in Moab, Utah. Last year we went to a B&B in Sedona. This year we spent the weekend near Tucson. We haven’t been to Hawaii together but that will happen some day.
Life is good! Much, much better than I ever imagined possible at one time.
posted by Paul at 9:49 PM
6 Comments:
I'm arranging to have the Oxford English Dictionary place this post under the definition of LOVE.
Thanks. I feel all warm and fuzzy inside now and am reminded of my own blessings. Congratualtions to you both.
It is a thing - a good thing.
If only everyone were lucky enough to feel as you do.
Yes! Yes! For almost eighteen years, I have experienced this sense of wonder and delight, waking every day with gratitude for the love of my life beside me. There is no place I would rather be.
Thank you for sharing yours.
I'm happy for you. :)
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