Friday, March 15, 2013

Seventeen



































Birdcage

3/16/96

This is the ticket stub from the movie SOB took me to on our very first date. March 16, 1996. We skipped school (I was only a junior in high school at the time, and he was a senior) and we ventured into the city of Pittsburgh. We went to the museum, took in an afternoon movie, and then went to a playground closer to home so that he could drop me off at my bus stop by the end of the school day. I'm pretty sure that no one in my family suspected that I had spent the day being a truant with a boy who made a habit of it, but I wouldn't have cared even if I had gotten caught. We were already friends, and by mid-day I was fairly certain I was madly in love with him. The threat of parental punishment was an afterthought at best.

I still remember so many little details about that day. What I was wearing. The chill in the air. The smell of mud from the park. He didn't kiss me that day, and I was in agony.

Fast forward seventeen years. We've had a typical life trajectory, but most of the time it feels extraordinary to me. I can't even count the number of movies we've seen, or remember how many museums we've been to together, and still a scent on a breeze of a muddy spring day will make my heart flutter like nothing else. I can't imagine that another person exists that could make me feel as happy and loved as he does.

Half of my life so far we've spent together. I can't think of anything I'd like to do more than to spend the rest of it together, too.

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2 comments:

Arizaphale said...

I wonder if the BA will feel like that about her current boyfriend (she is 17 now) in 17 years time :-)???

Amy Jo said...

It's a crazy thing, because I do remember a pretty persistent feeling that he was The One. I've been following your posts about BA's bf woes, and even though it's tough to be in a long distance relationship (not to mention a military one) my best friend has made a very happy marriage and family with a military man. Here's hoping she at least has better luck with this one than the last!