We met working at Pennzoil. He being an auditor and I being a....I don't know what my job titles were but I worked in Treasury. We first met at a weekly Bible study at work. My roommate wanted to introduce us but God beat her to the punch. He left for Brussels and worked there for six weeks and upon returning he took me to lunch at Charlies 517 just like he had suggested before leaving the country for six weeks. It was indifference at first sight. At that lunch he sat across from me with his arms folded and asked me a million questions, like I was on a job interview. I answered them with a bit of wit, humor and sarcasm, you know me being me, just keeping it real. When we returned to the office he felt I was the shallowest person he had ever met and my thoughts concerning him leaned heavily toward his arrogance. No harm, no foul, I got to eat at Charlies 517 which was quite all the trendy rage back in the day. Yet, as disastrous as that lunch had been, we found ourselves visiting whenever he came to the nineteenth floor. He asked me out for a date to a concert and I let him know I already had a date for it. I saw him from a distance there at the concert....and asked him at work if he owned a white suit just making conversation to let him know I saw him. Now let me remind readers who have only read about the 70's, it was a time of upheaval and unrest. Men wore leisure suits and they broke with tradition branching out into pastels and whites in the dress suit apparel. Thankfully, most survived. Anyway, he thought I was asking that question because I was planning our wedding. Uh, no Mr. Jump from 0 to 60 miles an hour in conclusions. He asked me out again and I changed my plans to go out with him and we had a blast and as they say, the rest is history. Roy is totally different away from his work mindset and he is still that way today. Remembering the day being told I was to have my first cardioversion and I called Roy at work. Instead of the compassion and assurance I so desperately desired, he is asking me do I have a living will? Do I have a medical power of attorney? Guess it was the crying that jolted him into kind and loving, not work focused mindset of Roy. We started dating in October, engaged in January and married in September and we lived happily ever after.
We found out that living happily ever after was ruined because we got married. I still marvel at the Lord's kindness that people can stay married for years and years and years. Because I think sometimes we do our best to unravel that plan, not intentionally, maybe sometimes, but just out of the fact that besides the two shall become one thing that takes some time...not talking about the obvious of the two shall become one, but it does seem to work itself into the equation naturally....but two people bringing in two sets of luggage and most of the time opposites attract. So there is all that opposite stuff that we loved while dating but seems to get on one's nerves the moment after you say I do.
Early on we decided to set some guidelines to help us when we were more angry or hurt than full of love and forgiveness....oh and patience. We stopped blaming our childhoods and focused on the now and future of our behavior. We wanted to go beyond what we experienced and saw and knew from our early years of life. We opted to never to go to bed mad at one another, never saying "divorce" in the throes of disagreeing and remembering we love one another...that the other person is not the enemy. I would remind Roy, the Bible say he who finds a wife, finds a good thing and OBTAINS favor from the Lord, meaning he was getting a lot more blessing and favor from God just because he had a wife.
That little spark of love that was in our hearts at the beginning has become a fire like Disco Inferno, bet you thought I would make a musical reference to the song Pass It On because of the spark thing and I just might if given the time.
Today we celebrate 37 years of being married, being in love and being in like with one another. We love each other more today than we did on this day 37 years ago. We have more laughs and fun, more patience and forgiveness. We have survived many events in our lives, disappointment, fear, danger, lack, prosperity, sorrow, joy, obstacles, great fun, health scares, and in it all we have learned that if God be for us, who can be against us...even sometimes when it is us that is against us.
If you can't tell it by now, I love him so much!!! I am blessed and want to be that blessing back to him. It is the fun of the little things, the joy of life, the mundane, the absolute vodka...just testing to see if you are still with me on this one, but the absolute love of a husband, the best gift from God, ever bestowed to me. Happy Anniversary! Here's to thirty seven more years together, some of which will be in North Carolina...nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina...in the morning, I mean spring time.
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