I remember...

I remember the first days of getting to know my husband, that year in college when we we took Vocal Literature class together and sang in Chamber Singers, and the sound of him singing made my heart skip a beat.  (It still does.)

That was eleven years ago.  Eleven.

I remember reading The Two Towers backstage in my geisha costume during our school's production of The Mikado and nearly jumping out of my skin when he stopped to talk to me about the battle of Helm's Deep as he wandered by, wearing his silly Ko-Ko costume with the gigantic axe hat and the lipstick and the coke bottle glasses.  Of course I thought nothing of how silly he looked, I only felt immediately self-conscious about how my gigantic wig with the fans and flowers made me, already by far the tallest of the "little maids from school", enormously tall next to him.

(It was hard to feel secure enough to laugh about those things at the time, but I definitely get a chuckle out of them now.)

I remember that Valentine's Day, the weekend after the production finished, when we were all still sleeping off tech week, that I found an anonymous card from a secret admirer in my mailbox in the student center.

I remember that I thought it must have been a joke, that I thought I should never have a real secret admirer.  I didn't dare to hope that it could be from him.

I remember that he accepted the invitation I issued to an "Abraham Lincoln's Birthday Party" my apartment-mates and I were having the very next day (just an excuse to have a party, really).  We partied in the Christian school way:  snacks, balloon-foot-volleyball, and a raffle with a fart whistle for a prize.  He came, dressed as George Washington, with his friend Andrew (who dressed as Ben Franklin).  They performed an impromptu presidential dance to MJ's Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.  The whole night, I eyed him for signs that he had sent that Valentine, but he gave me none.  I despaired.

I remember how two weeks later he asked me out for coffee, and finally admitted to the crime (the Valentine crime, that is).

I remember how young and silly and overdramatic we were, and probably heavily under the influence of all the romantic lieder we were both studying in our voice lessons.

I remember how despite being young and silly, we both seemed to have a kind of grown-up intuition that we were perfect for one another.

Ahhh, the good old days!

And God has seen us through these eleven Valentine's Days so far, and each one has been as wonderful as the first... if not more so.

Every time Valentine's Day rolls around, I remember...

I'm a lucky gal, to be sure.  Happy Valentine's Day to the Original Secret Admirer.