One year

I met him on a Friday night in front of the Saucer. He was wearing a muted green polo shirt and his hair had gel in it. He offered a warm smile and a nice, easy hug. I was nervous beyond all reason; I’d never even heard his voice and I am bad, baaaaad at dating. We’d just exchanged a few Facebook messages and then some texts so I honestly had no idea what I was getting into. Somehow I had gotten enough liquid courage in the wee hours of the morning to suggest that we get those drinks we’d talked about when we flirted briefly on some shamefully meat-markety dating site. He took me up on my offer almost immediately and there we were, less than a day later, sizing each other up.

The Saucer had some crappy cover band playing and we didn’t feel like shouting over them. So we walked over to Beale Street and procured a couple of Big-Ass Beers and walked around in circles, chatting awkwardly and trying to sip gracefully while navigating the bricked street (not easy), until we spotted two folding chairs in some shrubs in an alley close to Fourth Street. We sat there and the minutes then hours ticked by as we talked. Our conversation was easy and comfortable. We had the right kinds of things in common and we made each other laugh. He was smart and funny and cute and within that first hour I had developed the kind of breath-sucking big crush that I have only had a few times in my entire life. I couldn’t believe how nice and normal and good looking and charming this guy was.

I knew that night that I had met someone special, someone I hoped would be important in my life. I can’t say he thought the same thing about me, but I think I made a pretty good impression.

He kissed me in one of those well-maintained alleyways off of the Main Street Mall, and I didn’t care who saw.

It didn’t take long after meeting each other for us to become inseparable. Hours spent together turned into days then weeks then months. Our lives stitched together nearly seamlessly until I couldn’t remember what it had felt like before I got to spend every night with him.

I knew I loved him long before I actually had the courage to tell him. He had become my best friend, my bad-joke sounding board, and my verbal sparring partner. He’s as stubborn and hard-headed as I am, and he has that lawyerly way of loving to argue for the sake of arguing. (I have that journalist’s devil’s advocate way of loving to argue. Also I think I’m always right. Aaaand so does he.) His personality has helped me tease out the things about my own that I would like to change, but it’s also helped me learn how to stand fast on the things I believe in, and fight for those things even when pushed so hard it hurts. He’s sweet in a way that is often quiet but that suits me. He attacks me with hugs while I’m oblivious to the world, working on the computer. Some nights I come home from work, flustered, and he has dinner on the table and candles lit everywhere in the living room. He’s passionate about justice. He likes poetry and sports. And he’s so goddamn goofy sometimes that I wish he would let me film and broadcast every thing he does, because the world needs more of his antics. And he’s so easy on the eyes, I would be doing the world a favor.

I never expected to get what I have gotten out of meeting that dude on Beale Street a year ago. Never. And yet here we are, building a life and a family together.

Three hundred sixty-six days ago, I had no idea how quickly so much love could grow in my life. Today, I couldn’t be happier about that surprise.