Sometime prior to September 1994...He smiled at me, his smile highlighting the wrinkles firmly etched in his face. His face may have betrayed his true age, but the light in his eyes was still young. "The first 10 years are the hardest," he said. "After that, it's a piece of cake." There was a twinkle in his eye, and I wasn't sure what it meant. Was he simply teasing me, trying to "scare" a young girl? Or was there a hint of truth to his words?
I smiled politely and gave a courteous laugh, but I remember thinking,
10 years? I'll have to wait 10 years for things to be easy and comfortable? That seems like such a long time. But my momentary panic subsided quickly. After all, we were all here celebrating the 50th wedding anniversary of this man and his wife. They were proof that it could be done.
At that moment, I could barely fathom the thought of being married at all, let alone for 10 years--it seemed to be ages, light years away. I couldn't wrap my mind around the concept. . . .
September 1994I glanced side to side as I walked down the hallway, looking for the room number I needed. There was a girl a few steps behind me and though we hadn't spoken, I had a feeling she was looking for the same room. The classroom was easy to find--it was one of the only rooms with the lights on, and it was already full of people. I took a brief moment to steel myself before entering.
OK, so this class has already met once, and everyone probably already has all their seat assignments--big deal. Just act like you know what you're doing. I walked through the doorway, my head held high, looking cool and confident.*
*Other people's interpretation of my entrance is that I resembled a lost puppy dog. Those people are wrong.He was the first person I met eyes with when I entered--mostly because he was right in my line of sight, and partly because he was staring right at me, with a friendly grin on his face. Before I could make another move, he spoke. "Are you looking for the teacher?"
"Yes."
"She's right over there." He gestured toward a woman at the front of the room.
I don't remember saying thank you, but I hope I did. He told me his name, and I heard the name "Terry." That was the end of our brief interaction on that day.
The next week in class (which was a Biology lab), the teacher split the entire class into 2 large groups to work on an experiment. Somehow I became the designated secretary of the group, charged with making a graph of our results. I thought things were going fine until I stole a glance at the other group's chart, which looked completely different. I quickly realized that I was the one doing it wrong, and, with a sigh of frustration, I scribbled a large "X" across the page.
I don't know where he came from, but suddenly he was right beside me, taking the pencil out of my hand and erasing my X. He spoke softly to me as he helped me redo the graph, but I was too annoyed with myself to pay attention to his words or even notice his kindness.
A few days later, our paths crossed in the student common area. We chatted for a few minutes (during which I figured out his name was Tony, not Terry), and he casually asked me if I would be at the soccer game that evening. I said yes--after all, the soccer games were the big social event of the weekend, and almost everyone was there. "Maybe I'll see you there," he said, with that same easy grin he'd given me on the day we met. And with that, he was gone.
We found each other at the game, and spent the entire game talking. I have no idea what teams were playing or who won--my focus was completely on him. I was surprised to find myself completely at ease. I was so shy in high school that talking to any guy, whether I liked him or not, usually left me tongue-tied or stumbling through my words. But with him, the words came easily, and the conversation flowed naturally. It was like we knew each other already.
Our friendship exploded from that moment on. I'd never become friends with anyone that quickly, let alone a guy. Our friends (and almost all of them were mutual friends) teased us relentlessly about being a couple, but we both firmly argued that we were just friends.
After all, I told myself,
I can't possibly be in love. I'm only 17. There's no way I've met the man I'm going to marry already.As our friendship grew, so did our expressions of it. We found each other saying, "I love you"--but not in a romantic way, necessarily. He even came to visit me at home over Christmas break (though that was a bit of a fluke, because it was supposed to be a group of friends visiting me and when others backed out, Tony was the only one left).
Valentine's Day, 1995, he presented me with several roses and a romantic card. I responded by quietly freaking out. I gave him "The Talk"--told him things were moving too fast, that we needed to slow down. Still, my mind was screaming,
This is too fast. You're only 18. You can't be in REAL love yet. He graciously accepted my words and continued being my friend.
And so we went back and forth like that for a while--him tiptoeing ever closer, and me running away when things got uncomfortable. I didn't know why I was resisting it so much--though in hindsight, I can say I was just scared of the powerful feelings that were taking over me. He came to visit me at the beginning of our summer break, and mere weeks later, I gave him the "I think we should see other people" speech.
Toward the end of the summer, during one of our routine phone calls, he mentioned that he was dating someone. He said it with a note of seriousness which I didn't catch. I brushed it off. "I know you are--I'm the one that said we should date other people," I said lightly. I even knew who she was--an old friend of his that he had been spending time with.
"No," he said quietly. "I mean, I'm
dating someone."
"Oh." Without warning, tears popped into my eyes, and I quickly ended the conversation, hoping he hadn't noticed my emotions (yet knowing he had, because he knew me so well). We didn't talk much the rest of the summer.
When I got back to school in the fall of 1995, our sophomore year, one of my first orders of business (after dumping my luggage in my room) was to find all my friends--and the student common area was the place to do it. I walked in the door, looking eagerly toward the corner where we always sat. Sure enough, there was a small group of my friends--including Tony. He didn't see me at that moment, which was probably a good thing. I must have stopped dead in my tracks and stared. This was the first time I'd laid eyes on him in months, and I knew at that moment, without a doubt, that I loved him--there was no denying it anymore. But I was overcome by the feeling that I'd lost him forever to his new girlfriend.
We picked up our friendship right where we'd left off, and it didn't take us long to confess to each other that we loved each other--not just as best friends, but as something more. Tony broke up with his girlfriend shortly after, and by the end of November, we were officially a couple. Our friends rejoiced with us with a rousing chorus of "I told you so!"s.
I should mention here that Tony asked my parents' permission before he asked me to be his girlfriend. Old-fashioned? Maybe. But I thought it was a lovely gesture. Both of us knew that this wasn't just some casual fling--we knew, deep inside, that once I said yes, we would be together forever. Knowing where this relationship was leading made it only logical to get my parents' blessing.
I won't lie to you and tell you we didn't have our rough patches, but I can honestly say that we have been together ever since. Oh, I tried to break up with him once, and he flatly told me, "No." I was too baffled to know what to say.
"What do you mean 'no'? You don't have a choice when someone breaks up with you--they just break up with you, and that's it."
"No." He repeated the word again--not unkindly, but firmly, lovingly. "I know we are meant to be together--God is the one who brought us together, and He is not done with us yet." He was always so sure about us. I was too stunned to argue, and deep down inside, I knew he was right. My reason for wanting to break things off was small and insiginificant--nothing but a cover for me being scared again.
In July 1997, the summer before our senior year, Tony accompanied my family on our family vacation to New Hampshire. Tony and I followed my parents up in a separate car (since we couldn't all fit in the minivan) and spent the entire time talking about our future--where we would live, what we would do, how we would make it. He had a whole plan laid out, and I was touched by how much thought he had put into all this. He told me he planned to talk to my parents during this vacation about asking me to marry him, though he let me believe he didn't have a ring yet. (I later found out he'd been working odd jobs on Saturdays at school, making up excuses to me about what he was really doing, in order to buy me a ring.)
Talking about getting engaged and married was not strange for us, so I didn't think it odd that he wanted to talk to my parents, even if he didn't have a ring yet. I even knew what night he was talking to them--I went off to bed like a good little girl, knowing he was starting the conversation in the living room.
The next morning (July 10, 1997), my mom nonchalantly asked me if Tony and I would like to spend a little time alone together before the trip ended. Her suggestion was that they could drop us off at Loon Mountain--we could ride the gondola to the top, sightsee around the summit, and meet them back at the base for a picnic lunch. I didn't argue with the chance at some alone time (which is hard to come by when you have 4 nosy younger siblings), and off we went.
As we explored the summit, we came across a little boardwalk. We followed it and found that it led to a small platform that gave us a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains.
(This is us standing in "The Spot" 8 years later, in 2005--the only time we've been there since.)We stood there in silence for a few moments--he stood behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist as I leaned up against the railing. We talked about a couple things, briefly, then he asked me, "So... are you ready to spend the rest of your life with me?"
I casually replied, "Yes." Like I said, it was not at all unusual for us to talk like this. But then he let go of me, and when I turned to see what he was doing, he was down on one knee. He spoke to me--and I'm sure they were beautiful, well-thought-out words, but I couldn't hear a thing. I do remember saying "Yes" when he was done, and him slipping the ring onto my finger. We hugged, kissed, and eventually returned to the way we had been standing. We stood again in silence for a few moments until I gasped, "I didn't even look at the ring yet!" I had told him I wanted a heart-shaped diamond (hopeless romantic that I am), but the only ones I had ever seen were just simple solitaires--just the diamond and a straight, non-fancy band. But when I looked down at my hand, this is what I saw.
(Just pretend the wedding band isn't there.)It was more beautiful than I had even dreamed.
We were married on August 1, 1998, on an "unseasonably mild" summer afternoon. We honeymooned in the Poconos and then spent 2 years living in Florida before moving back to my home state, where we have been ever since.
Present Day...And now here we are. We have reached that milestone--that 10-year anniversary. And as much as I can look back and know for sure now that that dear old man was merely joking with me, there must be a reason his words have never left my memory. Perhaps there was more truth to them than he realized. Lots of people say the first year is the hardest--and in some ways, that may be true. Maybe you could even say the first 5 years are the hardest. Or then there is the infamous "7-year itch." But regardless of whether or not any or all of those statements are true, it doesn't matter--not for us, anyway. Because we've made it past year 1, year 5, year 7, and more. And hopefully we have many more years ahead of us. Maybe I'll even someday look back and say that the first 20 years were the hardest. Or maybe someday I'll be 71 years old, celebrating my own 50th wedding anniversary, and playfully telling some young girl, "Relax. The first 10 years are the hardest. After that, it's a piece of cake." And maybe she, too, will carry those words with her forever.
