Open Door

Open Door

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

My Greatest Gift

In case you didn't know, my sixteenth wedding anniversary is this week.  Every year I reflect on the beginning and decide that I am a hopeless romantic who believes in love at first sight.  Why?  Because it happened to me.

It was nearly nineteen years ago, when I saw Travis for the first time.  There had been a few brief encounters before then, but he was always doing something outrageous and I never could take him seriously (like wearing Mickey Mouse ears or sunglasses at night :).  I don't consider those instances, because we didn't meet authentically, but this occurrence changed everything.  It was August of 1992 and I was almost eighteen-years-old.  That seems awful young to be so jaded, but I had already decided that love was a weapon only used against you.  After a really bad break-up a few months earlier, I had sworn off the stuff and I was doing a pretty good job of avoiding any kind of relationship with a possible future.  But then my friend Molly called and that phone call changed my life.

She was in Salt Lake, staying at her grandma's and asked me to come up.  My parents were out of town and on a whim I decided, why not?  I left after work and arrived in Sugarhouse at around seven.  Molly asked me what I wanted to do and I told her I was game for whatever.  We ended up at Shane's house.  Molly had spent a lot of my relationship prison-term with Travis and Shane.  I was nervous because I didn't know them, but I had already said  I was game for anything, so I went along.  Travis was working that night, but I met Shane, Bruce and Jim.  Bruce played the guitar and I sang along.  We had a lot of fun and we quickly agreed when they asked us to come back the following evening.  This event was infamously known as 'The Tunnel Night' from there on after.  (If you want the full story, ask me sometime.  It was interesting, to say the least)

There were probably about seven or eight boys there.  I'm going to try and name them all--there was Graham, Shane, Shayne, Chuck, Jim, Bruce and Travis.  Molly and I were the only girls, so we were getting plenty of attention, but not in a bad way.  They all treated Molly like one of the guys and I felt like my acceptance into the group was just a given.  Shane made most of the introductions, but I have to admit that I don't remember any of them, past meeting Travis.  He was sitting in an office chair.  I can remember him pivoting around and our eyes meeting for the very first time.  The blood in my head swooshed and I felt like the floor dropped away from my feet, but I managed to stay steady, even after a tiny voice inside my head said I would marry him.

The next few months were turbulent to say the least.  Just because you know that you are meant to love someone doesn't make it any easier.  Especially for me, who doesn't like being told what to do, but Travis taught me that love is about so much more than three little words.  Out of all of the gifts I have been given, he is the greatest.  Happy anniversary, babe.  I love you!