Love and ...?

This year marked our 14th Valentines Day as a couple.  We have never gotten too caught up in the pressure to go overboard on that holiday.  Or any other, really.  There have been cards and flowers, occasionally.  Or a nice meal, or bottle of wine. We both agree that showing one's love and affection shouldn't be limited to one day per year.  Last Friday, I got up early with him, like always.  We quietly sipped our coffee and watched the sun appear. I made him breakfast and he was off to work until the early evening.  

He arrived home, sweaty and tired.  But smiling.  I complained that he didn't text me for a  grocery list and he said he was sorry, but he had stuff on his mind.  I asked him what sort of stuff... He then grinned, opened his arms, and  asked me to marry him.  "Of course!"  was my obvious answer.

After 15 years of cohabitation and most every life-hurdle one can imagine, it's official.  I'm giddy-moreso than expected.  Because he asked, I guess.  My first wedding was in 1981.  I was four months pregnant with my son.  We were hippies, living in the hills near Pescadero.  My mother was dying.  There was no proposal-we just did what we thought was expected of us.  It was a fun wedding. Country style, at tiny Pescadero Community Church.  

The reception was held at the church hall and my friends and I made all of the food, including a freshly-butchered turkey from my friend Christine's flock. Our friend Jim made a beautiful wedding cake, topped with marzipan skeletons.  It was a nice, eclectic mix of family and friends.  We didn't have the money for a fancy honeymoon, but we did manage a weekend in Big Sur, one of my favorite places on earth.  My mother died seven days after the wedding and Aaron was born in April.  Daughter Madeline came along a few years later, as did the demise of our marriage.  Blame it on our ages and the drift that too often occurs when people marry in their early twenties.  In retrospect, I was impatient and unrealistic about my expectations of him and our relationship.Our union lasted about six years. We have been divorced for more than 25 years. We are friends to this day.

My second marriage was also of the shotgun variety.  This relationship was volatile from the start.  Red flags waved in my face, ignored.  I must have felt the need to punish myself, and that's what I did.  I got pregnant just as my youngest child was starting kindergarten.  My then-partner promised to love and care for my two existing kids like he did his own child, and sent a letter to my father, proclaiming just that.  He didn't follow through on that proclamation. He terrorized and abused my two older kids on a regular basis.  I was then attending college classes in the evenings, attempting to improve my job skills.  I eventually dropped out when he announced that he couldn't cope with the childcare workload.  Things finally fell apart completely in 1998.  I drove him to the train station in Riverbank and he took up residence on his parents couch for several years. I've written about this fatal mistake of mine here before...  It wasn't until a few years after our split that I learned about his daily abuse of my children-especially my son.  When confronted, he admitted to all of it.  With no explanation.  As if any explanation would have excused it.  That marriage lasted about seven years.  We are not friends.  I work on forgiving myself and him every day of my life.  A total mistake, except that it brought me Quinn.  She makes all that ugly stuff worthwhile.  Our wedding took place on a bluff in La Selva Beach.  The wedding party consisted of my three kids. Quinn was eight months old and in my arms.  We couldn't afford a honeymoon, either.  But my friend's family owned the Seacliff Inn in Aptos, and she booked us a suite for the night as her gift.  Our baby girl accompanied us.  (She was breast fed-and spoiled!)  I would likely not have married him, but his father made a big (Catholic) fuss about it. We have now been divorced for almost 10 years-it took me 6 years to get him to sign the divorce paperwork.

 

In my current relationship, there has been no rush to marry.  We were not interested in having babies together, and instead focused on raising the kids we had.  He was thrust into his role as stepdad, and we went about the work of life.  There were heartbreaks and disappointments aplenty.  And two daughters to guide through adolescence.  We came close to falling apart way more than once.  The girls grew up and moved out.  Our fathers both died within a few years of each other.  We left our home state for this new frontier, and we ride out the challenges that come with such an endeavor.  We saw our  future here. Together.  We spoke of making it official, and I knew it might occur at some point. But this time, I wanted that proposal I had not yet experienced.

So... even though it was an inevitability,  he managed to totally surprise me. Especially proposing on Valentines Day, a day we have both laughed off as a Hallmark holiday.  I look forward to the rest of life's journey with him by my side.  As he says, this love is "road tested!"

We found this rock in 1999--at the base of a waterfall that drops onto Secret Beach in Point Reyes, California. It's a favorite, magical spot and this rock reminds me of our time there.