Oh my Gawd you guys!

So last week I told you about JoHn’s excellent 25th anniversary surprise of bringing me to the Old Meeting House where we got married.  He’d set up a special brunch, and we dined and laughed and remembered amidst the spirits and sprites have permeated the wood and stone and iron of a structure that has been standing for 270 years.

And I have to say that the I smiled when I saw the key JoHn picked up, from a basket on the porch of a kind and elderly member of the town’s Historic Society.  I don’t know what I expected, maybe an old iron key like the ones used by those meddling kids in Scooby Doo to get into haunted houses.  But what we got instead was a modern key, attached to one of those floating key chains that you get in a basket at Eastern Mountain Sports.

I guess that makes sense though, I mean the woman from the Historical Society is probably really practical, like most people who were brought up in the 30s and 40s. And also? Who am I to say that someone who had just used the Old Meeting House for a Bunco tournament wouldn’t haul off and hurl the key into one of the thousands of New Hampshire lakes, streams, or other waterways?

And in Maine, we have one of those float-y key rings for when we kayak, because in case we tip, the key would float…

Maybe people like to take the Old Meeting House key kayaking.

What?

You don’t know!

And I don’t know either, which is why I smiled at JoHn as we were leaving, and he was locking up the historic building with this totally modern lime-green float-y thing hanging from the key in his hand.

And we headed home and everyone who knew what he did was all, “How was it?” and “You are so lucky!” (and I was).  And all the guys at the Gabe’s soccer game that afternoon were all, “Oh man! Don’t tell my wife you did that, my anniversary is next year!” and “You suck, dude!” (which I then used to reinforce my insistence that he did not deserve the title ‘Perfect Husband’ because clearly not everyone thought he was actually ‘perfect’.)

So then a day later I was sitting and writing about the day for you guys and JoHn came up to me and was looking kind of sheepish and I thought that he fed Marshal Dillon Dingle the left-over bacon again, but he said he had to tell me something and I got a little nervous.

He said he knew I did not like surprises that take me out of my house and ‘away’ so he thought he should tell me that he had arranged an ‘away thing’ and I could decide whether I wanted to go or not.  So I started asking lots of questions about who was going to be here (Mac and Jack were coming up) and what about the dogs (they would be fine) and Gabe’s soccer game (we would leave after that) and he had thought of everything that would make me nervous about leaving when I wasn’t planning on it, and I was all wHierded out and said I’d think about it.

And when he left to go get food, I cleaned all the bathrooms (because clearly this was urgently needed before I left the house (?!) Don’t ask.) and put towels out for Mac and Jack and then, after Gabe’s soccer game the next day, we went to Vermont!

And I can’t remember the last time we went away, just us, to someplace that wasn’t Maine so we were talking about all sorts of things… which really shouldn’t have felt different than when we talk about lots of things at home in the kitchen, but it sort of did.

Why does that happen when you go away from your everyday?

It’s like you go all macro… all 10,000 foot level on your life.

Stepping back.

Taking in the view.

And we did, and it was awesome.

Twenty-five years together (well, technically, it’s more like 31 and change since we started dating (Groundhog Day (yep!), 1984)… but 25 years, like, legally.

And we were marveling that this year we’ll turn 50 years old – me in a few weeks, and then he will get a blissful 18 days to mock me before he joins me.

We kind of don’t feel 50… whatever 50 feels like.

I think we don’t feel 50 because we still feel like we felt way back when…

Two humans in love, looking out at the whole wide world, holding hands and stepping into it. Together.

So, over a plate of nachos at a corner pub in Vermont, we continued our quarter-century discussion of ‘what’s nexts’ and ‘what ifs’ and ‘imagine thats’.

And then… we made a startling discovery.

We realized that, though we may be almost 50 as individuals our lives as ‘us’, our lives –  technically (like, in the eyes of the law) – began just 25 years ago.

So…

We’re only 25!

We have our whole lives in front of us!

Yippee!

Turns out love give you wings and erases years…

HA!

I knew love was magic.

I knew it all along.

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