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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

In the Cards

I've had a number of moments in my life since I met Shannon in which I've had to take pause and wonder at the strange way the universe works. Considering five years ago we were in totally different places than we could ever have thought we would be,  it's amazing for me to think that we are where we are today. I have to marvel at the ways our lives change shape and grow moving us from one path to another. All the random that we assume exists in our lives somehow makes sense when you look back at it from your present location. You got where you are because you experienced what you experienced.

In a very not philosophical way, it makes me think of Sam in Quantum Leap. What can I say? My mom loved the show when I was a kid, and I remember it. It made an impression. Yeah, I know. That Scott Bakula. He's a character! I do think of the show, though, and how one thing changing the past, just one tiny thing, so completely changed the course of history. Maybe not for everyone, but most definitely for the person into whose life he'd jumped.

These are the things that I consider when I think about our lives five years ago.

Five years ago, Shannon and I briefly crossed paths at the wedding of our mutual friends Amanda and Andy. I was dating my college sweetheart. He was living with his girlfriend who would, shortly, become his wife. Shannon was working for his father's small business. I was unaware that in a few short months, I'd be thrust into a work environment where 75+ hour weeks were the norm rather than the exception. Shannon had stopped taking art classes at the community college. I'd just come out of my masters degree program a few months. He was building his life with someone while I was building my life with someone else.

And then what happened? A breakup. A move. New jobs. A marriage. New goals. Rock Band at our mutual friends' house. Divorce. A move (for him). A naked man walking out of my bathroom that did not belong to me. The period of non-happening in my life which I affectionately referred to with my roomie as our "boring phase." Life, as it always does, happened.

After all of that, we ran into each other again. One liners were exchanged. I may have been referred to as a social terrorist despite the evidence to the contrary. Beers were bought. Emails exchanged. A dirty secret about me having a big, fat crush was released into the wild. We dated. We moved in together. He survived (along with me) my first colonoscopy prep.

A word the wise, do not let your significant other of six months or less see you in the throws of full-on dehydrating bathroom usage unless you really, truly think he/she may be the one.

Despite the fact that I always thought you needed to have a traditional, long relationship in order to be happy; despite my absolute certainty five years prior that I would already be married with babies; despite the fact that I was secure in the knowledge that I would never be liked by my in laws; despite all of these things, 18 months after we first started dating, Shannon and I were married (and my in laws like me a lot). If that doesn't make me think that it was in the cards from the get go, I don't know what would.

Oh, except this. This makes me certain that we were always meant to find one another.

My sister as something (WTF?) and me as She-Ra

Shannon as Skeletor and his friend as He-Man (without arms, apparently)
You just can't argue with Fate sometimes. If Shannon had been He-Man, Fate and I may have had a quarrel because, well, He-Man and She-Ra are brother and sister. Gross, Fate. Gross. Thankfully, my man was a super villain kind of dude. Every girl loves herself a bad boy, right?

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