On February 7, my husband Rick and I will celebrate our first wedding anniversary. It seems somewhat surreal; honestly, getting married was just kind of a formality. But I suppose you deserve some background before we go any further, so here goes.
The powers that be, the universal forces, God, if you will, drew us together. If it had not been for a friend of mine who decided it was time for me to meet new and interesting people post divorce, Rick and I would never have met. Yes, we met (cue menacing music) on the internet! That was in 2003 and I can’t imagine my life without him. There are days I may like to, but we’ll save that for another day.
So, as luck may have it, I get this e-mail one September evening from some guy who has the screen name “VegasRicky”. Who in the hell has a screen name like that. At first glance it sounds like a character out of a bad gangster movie, you know the type, in the end he just ends up being fish food. The email said that I had an icebreaker from this VegasRicky fellow and did I wish to respond. I politely erased the e-mail and hoped that by ignoring it he might go away and slink back to his little corner of cyberspace. But then a few days later another icebreaker request. What to do? Obviously I would have to acknowledge. Would it be rude to tell him to go away? “Oh, Noreen”, I said to myself, “Just look at his profile”. So I listened to the little sane woman who sometimes lives inside my head and I looked at his profile. There at the top in the space where his name would be he had typed NLVDAD at ya know who. It was code for an email address. Those matching websites don’t like it when you find a way to communicate without paying them first. Usually they will dump that information within 24 hours time. I got lucky or I was crazy (mostly I go for the latter). Life is nothing without taking risks so I took a bite.
The string of e-mails that began with mine started like this
Me: Are you VegasRicky?
Him: Yes
This started a month long e-mail only exchange between us. We exchanged phone numbers a month later. A month after that, we began the US, we are today. Turned out that Rick was in the Air Force and stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas. He was going through a divorce, just like me. He had one daughter who, at the time was 6 years old. He lived 4 hours from where I lived in Williams, Arizona, just west of Flagstaff. We e-mailed and we talked every day morning and evening on my commute to and from work. We talked about a lot of things. We shared our dreams and our hopes for the future and our hopes for our children. Truth is, I fell in love with him before I even laid eyes on him, you see, we never exchanged photos, not even once. It wasn’t until he showed up on my doorstep at 3 o’clock one early November Sunday morning that we first laid eyes upon each other. When I saw him, the old saying came to mind; “You are everything, I never knew, I always wanted”. The rest, they say is history.
He retired from the Air Force in April of 2004, after 20 years of service. We have lived together ever since. We have been through a lot in our 6 years together. So, last February, we decided for more than one reason that it was time to make it official.
Now, I’ll key you in to the title of this entry. If you were to look at the list compiled by Hallmark of the traditional gifts for each anniversary, you will see that the first year is traditionally a paper gift. Don’t you think that is odd? I mean, paper? What significance would paper have to represent the first year of marriage? Should I give him a book or maybe a photo? Who knows?
So maybe we should take a quick look at “The list”. If you have a twisted mind, you will laugh. If you don’t, you should get one, they can be invaluable! Here is the list
Interesting, no? In the Victorian era, I am sure there was some code for all of this, some deep meaning symbolism. Paper, could represent the fragility of new marriage. Cotton to represent the softness, Leather, ahem, we won’t go there. If you go by the number of years we have actually been together prior to marriage, we have entered into the 7th year. Wool, wool is itchy, it is theived from a poor living creature who needs it to keep warm, wool is grandmotherly.
Notice that you don't even get to the "good stuff" until you have been married at least 25 years! I haven't got a prayer. Paper, cotton, leather, wood, iron, wool. When we make it to ten years, we can look forward to exchanging gifts made of the ever popular, tin! Won't that be fun? Whatever it is, or what comes through the years, the stuff won't ever matter, but it is fun to think of what one would do, if they stuck to the list.
I guess I’m no better off. I’ll stick with the paper, I will hope for a nice homemade card. That would be nice! I’ll come up with something nice too, come to think of it; straw wrappers are made out of paper aren’t they?
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