“These are the words I held back, as I was leaving too soon..
Please don’t be in love with someone else,
Please don’t have somebody waiting on you.”
Seven years ago I met this pretty cool guy at a house party.
We talked all night. I told him I could spell anything when I was drunk, and he lied to me and told me he liked some country music. I believed him because his voice sounded like a sweet southern song, but I’d later find out that he really hates almost all country music and much prefers techno and dubstep. For reasons too many Jell-O shots won’t allow me to remember, we took our first picture together, sporting sunglasses at night.
I attacked his lips with smooches before he left, and he proceeded to ask me on a date. Days later, he messaged me on MySpace with a quick message: “What’s up, spelling bee?”
The rest is history. But a history that I love to tell and retell.
For so long, the way he treated me felt so brand new. Part of this was because I was only nineteen, and fairly new to the whole dating scene. But more than that, what I had witnessed of serious relationships in my previous eighteen years had left me substantially incredulous for someone so young. Robby was what I had only dreamed a partnership could be, not what I had ever known the reality to look like. From the very beginning, I was taken aback by the complete freedom I felt when I was with him.
In our earliest of days, he once left my friend’s apartment living room in the wee hours of the morning to head off to work. I was barely awake when I heard the door close and then, moments later, open again. He had walked back inside just to give my half-asleep self a quick kiss goodbye.
And that was how it always was with Robby. He looked at me like I had hung the moon, told me he loved me entirely too soon and quite often, gifted me with sweet surprises and constantly gave my hand quick pecks, just because. His happiness was contagious and his complete adoration for me slightly baffling. It seemed too good. I worried that it wouldn’t last.
Yet here we are more than seven Mays later, with years’ worth of love and happiness and our own little Brynlee Mae Boudreaux. Today I woke him up in the wee hours of the morning to tell him that I couldn’t sleep. He was barely awake as he stroked my back and snuggled until I felt relaxed enough to doze off again. I’m still occasionally surprised by his sweet smooches, thoughtful actions and loving words, but I’m so grateful that it’s all that our Miss Mae has ever known. I’m happy to share his hung-the-moon gaze with this sweet baby girl that we made all by ourselves.
Seven years later and our love still feels like freedom. Like the deepest of belly laughter. Like seeing fireflies in your backyard hammock on a star-studded summer night. Like kissing at sunset on the Jackson Street Bridge, or getting lost in Venice in the rain, or renewing wedding vows in a silly little Vegas chapel. Like the grandest of adventures. The kind that you just can’t wait to continue for the rest of your days.
