Everyone knows that today is Valentines Day, but not everyone knows that today also marks 16 years that I've been with my husband. Our actual wedding anniversary isn't until April, but 16 years ago tonight, we began the journey of a lifetime.
It's been a long, and sometimes difficult, road, but we've managed to stay together somehow.
Looking back, I remember how our respective friends at the time warned us that we would never work. We were too different, wanted different things. The old saying that "opposites attract" never seemed to mean much to any of them.
Our "meeting" in December of the year before, was odd, and in a way, began before we ever laid eyes on each other.
After coming out of my 1st marriage, a friend who'd also recently separated from her husband, and I went to the local flea market. Back then, there was a little gypsy lady that had a small camper that was there every weekend. I'd seen her countless times, but never paid her much attention.
On this particular day, my friend suggested we get our "futures told". It was all very fun and light-hearted at the time.
She said she wanted us to come in separately, so that our energies didn't mingle, or something of the sort. Passing doubting glances between us, my friend went first. We were both smiling as the door closed behind her on the camper.
Probably 15 or 20 minutes passed, and my friend emerged from the camper. Her smile had been replaced by a look of shock and confusion. She refused to tell me what had happened until after I'd had my turn.
I entered the gypsy's domain with much trepidation.
We sat at the little kitchen table, across from each other, as she looked into my eyes with an intensity that made me squirm, then she appeared to look all around me, at last she asked for my hand, palm-up. After a few intense moments of staring at my hand, she abruptly released it and her gaze once again rested intently on mine.
Her words at the time, left me feeling confused. She spoke of "the one I'd lost" not being meant for me. That I'd gotten what I was intended to from that relationship and that although it would never be truly over, that it was in the past.
She then told me that the one that
was meant for me, was still out there waiting, although he wasn't aware of it. That I would have to travel to find him.
I was in the middle of a messy separation involving a child, I just couldn't, at that time, see me "traveling" anywhere.
She gave me a description of this man who was my destiny, including tall, with red hair and in a uniform.
My friend and I compared notes and discovered that much of both of our encounters had rung true, but there were some things she'd said to us both that just did not seem likely. I dismissed it out of my mind and forgot about it for a little over a year.
We just never know what life will throw at us. That day, I couldn't see how I could "travel" anywhere. I had a small child to raise, a family here. I just couldn't see it.
A little over a year later, the very foundation of my world had shifted beneath my feet and left me feeling as if I had nothing left. The separation was final and my ex-husband had sued for, and won, custody of our daughter. I went home from the courthouse in the deepest and darkest depression of my life. Within days, I was in the grip of a complete nervous breakdown.
I was haunted day and night by memories of my daughter's laughter and footsteps ringing through the house. My grandfather found me regularly, in her room in the middle of the night, crying and clutching her toys and stuffed animals. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and packed up the house, made arrangements for my Grandfather, and went to stay with a friend's mother.
A few weeks later, I was on that friend's doorstep in another state, clutching a picture of my daughter to chest with tears streaming down my face.
After much tender care from my friends, I started to find my feet again and decided I needed a job. I found one doing one of the only things I knew how to do, waiting tables.
I had been working for about 2 weeks and was at work early, getting the place ready to open, when I got the strangest sensation. All the hairs on my arms and neck stood on end and my heart leaped to my throat.
I spun around to face the door and there stood a tall, red-head.....in an Army uniform. My heart promptly plummeted to my stomach as I turned and flew into the back room.
In that brief moment that our eyes had locked across an empty room, something passed between us, and he'd known, too.
He was a regular already, worked there part-time, and had just returned from his 30 days out in the field, and he came regularly. It became my habit to try to avoid him and his habit to pursue me relentlessly, to the point that he almost got me fired.
I finally agreed to go to breakfast with him with the clear intention of telling him all the reasons he didn't want to go out with me and running him off. My efforts at way-laying him only made him more determined to have me and he hounded me like a dog worrying a bone.
I eventually gave in, almost 2 months later, and we began dating. Before I knew it, he'd practically moved in with me. A month later, he invited me to a picnic on post and introduced me as his fiancee. We went and got a ring when we left that day.
In the end, the gypsy lady was right. 16 years later, I still wake up in his arms every morning and fall asleep in them every night.
