Elwood suggested that we go out for a Valentine's Eve dinner tonight. I was looking around last week in search of reservations and realizing I'd left it a little late, but there's a lot less restaurant traffic on February 13 than on February 14. We dropped Joe and Pete off at the climbing gym, and went to a cozy little restaurant we enjoy.
"Do you know how many Valentine's Days we've spent together?" I asked. "This is our 33rd."
"Wow," he said. "I don't remember our first one but I'm sure you do."
He was right, of course.
In February of 1988 I was a freshman in college. A group of friends made a last-minute plan to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and I drove south from Chicago with them. This was a BANANAPANTS decision, my friends-- straight-up bananapants. One of the crew had an uncle who was a priest in New Orleans, and he agreed that we could stay at the rectory/convent associated with his parish. My parents were (rightly) horrified about this trip, so I turned off the ringer on my dorm room phone so they would stop bugging me. (Attention, any Gladly children who read this post at any point in the future: this was a terrible plan, a genuinely terrible plan. I do not recommend this plan.)
We left Chicago on a frigid February night. The weather in New Orleans was sunny and mild. In my memory the crowds were also sunny and mild, although I do distinctly remember thinking, "There is a seedy underbelly here to which I was completely oblivious when I lived here as a child." The Sunday before Mardi Gras was Valentine's Day, and our group left a restaurant to find a man busking on the sidewalk. As we stood nearby he started singing "You Send Me." Elwood and I had only been dating for a few weeks at that point. "Go on and dance, you two," said our friend David. So we did. I remember it vividly: swaying on the sidewalk, basking in the warmth of the night and the warmth of the voice.
So tomorrow will be our 33rd Valentine's Day. There are no trips to New Orleans planned for this year; during the day I will do some exciting revising of a manuscript and some even more exciting grading, and perhaps we will hear a classical music performance in the evening.
"Do you suppose we have 33 more Valentine's Days in our future?" I asked him at dinner. "Hm," he said, "I don't know about that." He'll be 85 in 33 years; I'll be 82. It's strange to think that at some point we will cross the line -- if we haven't already crossed it -- where we have less future together than past. But as Elwood leaned across our shared plates to kiss me he said, "I love getting older with you, Jamie."
Gladlyville is cold and snowy tonight; there are no parades, no holiday atmosphere, and there are certainly no buskers. Maybe New Orleans would be a more romantic destination. But I have the good fortune to be married to someone who sees me exactly as I am and loves what he sees, and that is the perfect amount of romance for me.
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