Thirty-Eight Years

We were married in front of our wonderful friends in Chestertown, Maryland on January 16, 1981. There’s a photo of everyone taken on the courthouse steps I’ll no doubt find when we move, which can’t come soon enough, either. We only had to walk about a block and a half from our apartment in the small Eastern Shore town. My wife wore a beautiful vintage hat and a perfect raccoon coat. I was in tails and a derby, oh my.

Afterwards everyone came back to our apartment and got drunk on champagne. By that time it had started to snow. Our landlord’s wife, one of the guests, needed a ride home to their house in the country and promised us dinner. The roads were slippery as hell as the light started to fade. When I came to the edge of town and turned left heading for Worton, my ’67 Saab started spinning counter-clockwise in the snow, directly in front of oncoming traffic, yet nobody panicked or screamed, being exceedingly well medicated. I remember feeling utterly calm and relaxed as the car slid slowly around in a circle and ended up pointing down the road where we wanted to go, perfectly placed on the right side of the road. I motored on through the gloom as if nothing had happened. We were invincible.

In a few months, we’ll have been twenty years here in New Mexico. We don’t own a home, I have credit card debt, and the last few years have been harder than most. All the losses and dyings, my God, who knew? All I ever wanted to do is live with my darlin’ and be a real man. Since I seem to be real and the lady’s still here, there’s nothing to prove in the end. The eternal boy on his seventh or eighth life with the heart of a lad and the soul of a thief, ambitious as ever and still shedding doubt. It’s never over, you know. We go till we stop.

She says when she first met me, she knew. I wasn’t that sure but fell so hard and never once wanted to leave. Happy anniversary, babe! It was all meant to be. I owe you my life and I’m yours.