What 7-Year Itch?

What’s your love story? Do you have one? On Monday, my husband and I will be celebrating our 7 year wedding anniversary. We have been together since August of 2002, 11 years, but who’s counting. So today, I’m taking a break from the usual all things mothering and parenting and babying to tell you about my love story. No particular reason, I just like it.

Karl, my husband, and I grew up 45 minutes from each other but never met until we both lived in NYC after college.  We were both actors. Not the famous kind of actors who you see on TV or in movies…the broke, starving-artist kind of actors who acted for the art of it, and if you got paid, great…if not…it was ok…you had a day job.

Before I met my husband, I had played “the field” quite a bit. I took full advantage of living in NYC as a single lady. It was fun. It was stupid. I dated a guy who hustled people in pool at a bar called the Raccoon Lodge. I’m not kidding. I smoked clove cigarettes and I was angsty. When I met Karl I was ready for a decent guy.  Unfortunately Karl was “taken” when I met him; dating some girl from college who’s name rhymed with “Ritzy”. You figure it out. Anyway, we were both acting in an off-off broadway show, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I almost immediately fell in love with him. I played Helena and he played…The Wall. That’s right, I fell in love with a guy who was playing a wall. He was hilarious, he wore, Where’s Waldo Glasses, had a goatee, and was a paralegal by day.  Despite my efforts he did not leave his girlfriend of over 4 years for me right away. We became friends, and it was one of the first times in my life that I learned to really like a guy based on a friendship rather than some sort of intimate obligation of the one night stand kind.

I won’t bore you with all the details in between, although they’d make for a riveting novel. After he left “Ritzy” he and I moved in together and lived in NYC for 4 years. It was magical. No really…we both acted, worked day jobs, lived in the village and then the upper west side. We adopted guinea pigs, ran in Central Park, saved our paychecks to eat at restaurants like Le Bernadin and shopped at the Union Square farmers market.

After 4 years I started to ask him if he would marry me. He refused. I broke down and told him I didn’t need a ring…all he needed to do with put a ribbon around a rock (like a real rock), and give it to me and we could get married. On a surprise trip to Paris we missed our connection in the Philadelphia airport and he proposed to me in gate 6a. We celebrated over a cosmopolitan and chicken wings at the local airport Ramada Inn (we caught the next flight to Paris the following morning).   When Karl inquired if they had champagne, the bartender replied “Sir, this is the Airport Ramada Inn.” When Karl asked if we could upgrade to a suite, they simply laughed at us.

We decided our wedding would be in Vermont, despite the fact we were moving to Chicago that fall. Little did I know that I’d be writing this 7 years later, living here in one of my favorite places. The wedding day was hot, it was muggy. My bridesmaids all got mosquito bites on their bare shoulders while they stood next to me during the ceremony. It started to sprinkle during the first five minutes of the ceremony. And then, as if, someone looked up at the sky and said, “don’t you dare” the drops stopped all together. They held off patiently waiting until all our guests had entered the tent and sat down for dinner.

My love story goes beyond our wedding day 7 years ago. It still continues. It’s an epic story. I love the past chapters, the current page that we’re on, and I know there is more in store for us. Don’t get me wrong, we have had many ups and downs.  But a story without drama isn’t fun to read.

What’s your love story?