Pins

I married my husband twenty-two years ago today right next to (it was locked and we could not get inside) the underground part of the Student Union Building that had formerly been called the Rock Bottom Lounge -  where we first met at the University of North Texas in Denton. We had met there during college when I was making the rounds to talk to student organizations about the dangers of bigotry towards Muslims, and on making sure we did not end up with Muslim internment camps, during the first Gulf War (the more things change and all).  He was the head of a student organization that did literature in performance that let me come speak and he adjusted the microphone for me (I'm really short) and then teased me for the rest of my life for not remembering him very well from that first meeting.  Though I still have the clothes I wore at it crumpled up in the back of my closet even though they have not fit me for decades.

We are not a perfect match.  We are not either of us easy-going or mild mannered.  We are complicated.  We push each other in ways good and bad. We love each other but are not all that talented at either romance or contentment.  

We are partners, though. Usually we are partners in the struggle - trying to make the world a better place and to help the vulnerable - though he will sulk for a season when things get bad after an election the way they are now before picking up the struggle again. We are partners in coping with the hardships life has thrown at our family.  Partners in raising two daughters who are so amazing that our partnership must be considered one of the most successful of all time - I mean, have you met them?

What we have is family - the love of it, the work of it.  I am happy to give all of my decades to that endeavor.  I am glad he is in it with me.


Happy Anniversary, Lone Star Pa.