They say that when it comes to finding your true love, “The One,” you’ll know.
Eyes meet. Sparks fly. Stars align. Time stands still. Chemistry and electricity: kaboom. Love.
Um, that’s cute, but as the Carpenter and I mark 25 years of marriage this week, let me assure you, that’s not our experience. Yet, I promise, our story of kismet is a good one. Let me tell you how it all began.
We first laid eyes on each other at a garage party. Romantic, right? I was 16, the new girl in school, dating a bad boy (how cliche). The party was being chaperoned by my buddy’s older brother, three years our senior, who was having a party of his own with his pals in the kitchen. My future husband was in that kitchen.
We were introduced. We made eye contact. That was that.
Cut to four years later. New Year’s Eve. Basement party at a banquet hall. Same garage party crowd. Nice new hockey player boyfriend. I wore my brand new suede cowboy boots that I’d got for Christmas to the party (90’s fashion, don’t judge).
I made sure everyone saw them. He remembers.
It was an uneventful evening until a fight broke out and my guy buddies got involved. They loved a good dust up. Needing to make a quick exit, my job was to load the boys into the car so we could get gone before things escalated. Yeehaw. But there was one guy who wouldn’t stop chirping his opponents and get in the car. I had to yell to get in. That scrappy guy was my future husband.
Cut to one year later. My same former high school buddy was getting married to a girl he’d met in the Navy. He asked me to represent his side in the wedding party. I met the bride for the first time at the dress shop to model for her bridesmaids dress options, because her friends all lived back east. One issue: I was 100 pounds and shaped like plywood. Her attendants were not. She chose a taffeta red satin, mid-calf gown to suit the curvy, voluptuous bridesmaids. I had to wear red satin shoes too. I looked like a shiny red pogo stick in a line-up of voluptuous women. The pictures don’t lie.
The night of the wedding rehearsal, I was running late after work. I walked through the church doors just as they were lining up the ushers and bridesmaids. My friend Steve and I were to be paired up and the last to make the walk up the aisle. I took my spot in line. Someone took my arm. I looked over. It wasn’t Steve.
“Nice of you to show up,” the guy whispered sarcastically, with a chuckle that I have come to know and love. My future husband, the man who’d have my back through everything that life has thrown at us (and boy has it thrown things at us). We’ve been showing up for each other ever since.
Of course, I had a sassy reply. I cannot publish it though. My mom reads this. Trust me when I say he laughed. Just like that: instant friends.
Arms linked, we paced the walk up the aisle of the church, in step with one another like we’d done this a thousand times. Ah, but that’s not the best part. More from me next week.
Happy 25th anniversary, Carpenter, you lucky guy, you.
