January 27

Eighteen years ago today, David and I went on our first date. It was on a Sunday evening, after the Superbowl (because I had a party to go to and he had the kids for the weekend). And it was bone-cold with hard frozen snow everywhere, like it is now. For many years, we celebrated on Superbowl Sunday, because it seemed more congruent with the original event. Over time, however, as the Superbowl migrated farther and farther into February, it began to seem silly. We had to look up the original date. From the list of Superbowls, of course.

But now things have come around and the Superbowl is this Sunday. I don’t know which we’ll observe, tonight or Sunday. We never seem to come up with all that much to do to celebrate, which is okay, too.

For many years we talked about reprising our first date. The problem there? It was a terrible first date. It was cold, it was late. There had been a huge going away party on Friday night, I’d gone on a long ski excursion Saturday, chili and beer all afternoon hadn’t perked me up, I wasn’t sure of him, the movie was terrible, he asked if he made me nervous and dropped me off. We didn’t kiss until our third date. And no, I don’t know that date at all, except that it was well after Valentine’s Day. Long story. Suffice to say, it took us a while to recover from the first date.

“Your anniversary of what??” a friend once asked scathingly. I notice that people (read: other women) with wedding anniversaries get upset when I mention our first-date anniversary. They’ll often trot out their own dating history and tell me what their cumulative count would be, if they counted from the first date and not the wedding. They almost dare me to argue, which I never do. The beginning is the beginning, no matter how inauspicious. I’ve come to believe that a bad beginning holds all the luck in the world.

Happy Anniversary, My Dear!

6 Replies to “January 27”

  1. Hey. I wanted to tell you. A student group collected money to fund building a labrynth on campus. Construction was completed this week. I took some photos of it this morning that I hope look as good as I want them to. I love being on a campus where things are accomplished easily. The fundraising started when I first arrived, and voila! the labrynth is done. “Life is not linear.”

  2. Your meaning was clear, RM! And can’t wait to see those photos. Entitle them “labrynth” and it’ll be an artistic choice! (Incidentally, I can’t edit the posts, for good or evil; I can only approve or deny…)

  3. There is such a gap between our wedding date (1/11/1990) and the date of our first kiss (5/5/1981 – it wasn’t really on a “date”, per se, but perhaps that’s a story for another time) that we just mark and celebrate both. But, then, we also celebrate our children’s half-birthdays and the date that Keesha (the stuffed tiger) joined our family. It’s possible that we just like to celebrate.

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