a good time was had by all

charlotte and i grew up together. we never dated until we were in our early twenties, but we have known each other for almost thirty years. her step-father raised his family in wimberley; too, so i grew up with all of my wife's step brothers and sister ,too. this is really weird because everyone knows everyone and everyone else's stories.

charlotte is going through old photos tonight. she got into scrapbooking about a year ago, and now she is photo-obsessed. she has been showing me pictures of her and her friends in elementary school who are (obviously) people with whom i went to elementary, also. it has been a night of laughing and telling "do you remember?" stories. this is one of the great things about growing up together : the parts of the stories i've forgotten, she remembers; and vice- versa.

we have been married for over 14 years. our anniversary is june 6th. you may know this date as the anniversary of d-day, or as the birthday of damien thorn. even so, it has not proven to be an omen of doom for us. at the beginning, you may have suspected otherwise. we had a very difficult time getting used to each other. we seem to have very little in common. our interests are not the same. our tastes in music are contrary. she is super-ambitious and very organized. me- not so much. i love the outdoors and she loves to watch me go outdoors. she won't swim in anything that's not got a regulated chlorine count. as i think of it, i am not sure how we ended up together. our first date took place at one of my brother's basketball games. i spent a good amount of time explaining the rules of the game and trying to pretend she was grasping it. she might as well have told me she had never heard of abraham lincoln. but, she was so good looking that i decided to overlook her obvious flaws of character and give her as many chances as it would take. apparently, she had the same thoughts.

what we do have in common is the memory of how much we love each other, and the knowledge that we both want to keep our marriage fun and secure. that's the only real commonality required for a happy relationship. that, and reciprocity.

fourteen years is a long time. it has not always been easy to keep it together. usually, the breakdown of relation has been of my doing, but this street does have a yellow line. i guess what i'm saying is that i love my wife. there are times in life that a simple statement like that is hard to vocalize with real conviction. we all have certain days which are bad, and they can turn into weeks and months of indifference if allowed to fester. the greatest lesson i've learned from my experience is that problems between us don't get resolved through a pissing match. we tried that and ended up separated. that was the worst day of my life. fortunately, she has learned the same lessons and we try to keep each other happy.

i never want to be without her and hopefully i never will. i love you, sweet girl.