22 years ago I was a 23-year-old PMSing dreamer marrying my OneAndOnly. It was, except for the drippy hotness of a typical late summer afternoon, a perfect day for a wedding.(My only regret is that I didn't bring Ellie Dog - the perfect black lab mutt - to the celebration.)
Daddy was there, guiding me by the arm. "Do you know Curt is wearing, um, cowboy boots? You can back out now if you want to."
Mom was there. "I'm so sorry. I thought I knew where the cake topper was!" The cake topper she used in her wedding was missing. We split-second subbed some daisies in its place.
Michelle was there. All happy and in her element with her then-Secret Service Agent boyfriend. Oh yeah, we had security detail at our wedding.
Both grandmothers were there. Simply beautiful in their experience and love.
Today we are 45 years old.
And we are still married.
That's 22 years, for those who are counting.
We have made it this far, thanks to God's patient guidance and blessing.
By today's standards, we've made it.
By my standards, we're only part-way there.
We have a lifetime left. I can't wait to get started.
We've been home a bit more than a year, long enough to feel like we've been here forever. In a way we have, except for that decade between 2003 and 2013.
Forever is more of a feeling, anyway, than an actual stretch of time.
It's that star, that very same "world's largest freestanding illuminated man-made star", that lit up the night when I first moved here in 1990, fresh out of Clinch Valley College with nothing more than a diploma, a rust-colored Toyota Tercel named Barney, and big, big hair. That star watched me start my first job in the city, a $14,500/year receptionist at CorEast Savings Bank in downtown. Downtown!!!
It's driving by where Sonic used to be and seeing myself parked there with Mom, ordering large Diet Cokes while David Gray pumped through my speakers. Mom didn't particularly care for David Gray, but she did love a good Diet Coke.
It's picking up where you left off with the same friends you started teaching with in the trailer at Fallon Park. That trailer is still there, and it still smells the same. I'm told there are still Peppermint Patties in the fridge.
It's driving through Old Southwest's Highland Park, where we got married, where we served hotdogs to our guests on a humid Labor Day weekend. And then, driving out of the park, on the dead-end of Walnut Avenue, it's seeing our first home, a 5-apartment 1926 home we rehabbed to its single-family days. We brought baby Camden and Baby Benjy home from the hospital to this house. I can still see Mom and Dad and my little sister Michelle swinging on the porch, rocking my babies.
It's eating dinner at Curt's mom and dad's house, right next door to the 1906 house we are rehabbing now. Sitting at the dinner table piled high with honey ham and sweet potato soufflé, we listen to the same stories of Curt's childhood I've heard before, this time punctuated by the laughter of no-longer-babies Camden and Benjy.
It seems so much of being back home has been simply remembering. That decade away did nothing to dim my recollections and everything to make me appreciate them. I can see how that man-made star illuminates my past in neon-y Kodachrome colors and Instagram filters and gives meaning and weight to the memories my family and I create today.
