First Anniversary!

Okay.  Nobody is more surprised about this than Me!

Today is our one-year wedding anniversary.  It was the first wedding for both of us, and was a particularly big event for me, since I put love and marriage together about the same way I do sex and babies: I know there's a connection, but I'm not interested in it at all.

But I married Sue anyway and today am way glad I did.  We had a sweet little ceremony at this empty super-luxurious condo where we were living (mostly because the economic downturn made it possible for guys like me to live there); Sue's mother flew in from El Salvador, we had pupusas catered in from a great Salvadoran joint in Lantana, and all our friends came to wish us well and make it a beautiful day.

Naturally, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, with a couple of real neat extras on top.  Sue's car was shot out from under her about two months earlier and I bought a junker for her to get around in.  That car died on the Wednesday before the wedding and so we rushed over to some dealership that was wicked glad to see us because of the . . . economic downturn, and bought her a good car.  Since I already owned a car from after my motorcycle accident (four wheels only now for Papi!), I was suddenly the proud owner of loans on two (2!) cars.  But it wasn't over: the next day Enrique's car died and he and Nuria had to walk home from the Tri-Rail station on Gateway.  Then I showed up for the ceremony without the ring (Oh, that!  Really?  Like you want me to put it on or something?) and everybody had to wait while Miguel and I ran around looking for it.

The most important thing, and the thing I had been most concerned about, was that pretty much our entire community of friends and colleagues showed up to share the moment and to wish us well.  The community or public part of the whole wedding thing was the hardest for me.  I think its the heart of the disassociation of love or sex and marriage with which I began above: I tend to be shy about publicizing my personal life.  And I thought there was plenty of good reason to be shy about this union, since it was with a former student who is so much younger than me.  But it turned out that everybody was way happy that we were doing this.  Who knew?  Last night Sue and I went to a faculty party where half a dozen people who knew me when I was in my previous relationship came up and said how happy and how "relaxed" I look since hooking up with Sue.  That's good enough for me.

So it was a lovely day and I'm happy to remember it a year later.  What I remember most is how fucking beautiful Sue looked, how she was able to take over the situation and to be the star with so little effort, and how happy she was.  Its a great thing to be able to make somebody that happy, and frankly, I never thought I could.  I love her, love being married and wearing the ring, I love my family and I love all my friends and colleagues who have been able to bless our marriage.

I got up early to write this before the day started.  Sue and Enrique are stirring and I think we're going to run down to that Salvadoran joint in Lantana to re-up on pupusas.