NYE 2005, 15 years ago tomorrow
Fifteen years is such a long time and yet feels like it was only a few years ago. I can’t say it feels like yesterday because I am a completely different person; we all were different people back then.
I was a senior in college and I was in my parents’ home in Amsterdam, NY. I had finally cut ties with my ex-boyfriend after a long messy breakup of our 5 year relationship. I was 20 years old. In the spirit of fun and new things, my college friend/ kind of boyfriend invited me to his parents’ lake cabin for New Years Eve. I brought my younger sister, who was home from college too. He mentioned he was inviting one of his friends from high school, who was also home on break and had no plans.
Ryan, Bob, Liz, and me. December 31, 2005.
I met my future husband on New Year’s Eve. We started “officially” dating January 2, 2011. We had been living together for over 4 years, started by wanting to save money on rent and amenities like cable and internet. Our “cute starter home-like apartment” became our starter home. After knowing each other for 6 years, after living with me for 4 and seeing all shades of my kind of crazy, he still wanted to date me. He wanted to marry me. He wanted to have children with me. He wanted me. No strings, no changes, no holds barred. “If you can make it 3 months, you can make it forty years,” he would tell me after we were married.
I remember thinking when I met Bob that his voice was a little higher than I expected. It would squeak sometimes and then he would cough and adjust it lower for emphasis. He was quiet but had an easy smile. He laughed with you, not at you. He would make me laugh easily. He wasn’t “my type” in a guy but we would become friends. We would become best friends.
I can’t tell if knowing this is the 15 year anniversary of when I met Bob is harder because of the number of years or if this is what my New Year’s Eves are all going to look like. 5 year marks in marriages are a big deal. I told him when we hit our five years of marriage mark I wanted to get the upper band for my wedding ring (I have a lower band soldered to my engagement ring), but we had a newborn and bought a house instead, so I put it off. The next year Bob was going through chemo. By our 7th anniversary he was gone. We were married 6 years and 8 months exactly. He battled cancer for 10 months exactly.
This holiday season was different on many levels. I learned how to say no. I learned how to stand by my decisions. I learned what was important this year, what has always been important but I wasn’t able to see it last year in grief survival mode. My family is important. My family. The girls, Orion, and myself. The family Bob and I made together.
I don’t have to know the answers to get through the day. And the end of the day will always come. This New Year’s Eve will turn into New Year’s Day, 2021.
In fifteen years I graduated from college. I moved out on my own (and changed residences several times in the first 2 years). I held steady full-time jobs and learned a new career as a pharmacy technician. I had relationships. I was engaged. I got married. I raised a puppy. I had 2 daughters. I bought a house. I nursed a husband through cancer. I lost my husband to cancer. I became a single mother. I became a writer. I became financially independent. I learned to love my strength if not always my appearance. I learned there is nothing “wrong” with me, I am who I am. I became a Nationally Certified Pharmacy Technician. I completed my Paralegal Certification. I did all these things. I didn’t do them alone, but I did them.
Beautiful girl, you can do the hard things.
