18 years ago today

So I'm sitting at a bar called What's Your Beef in Scottsdale, which is the farthest I've been away from my new home base in Tempe. Me and some buddies from California, who are out for the weekend, have just been turned away at a few bars down on Mill Avenue because not all of them had good fake ID's like I did and couldn't get in. The last place was particularly galling to me, because it seemed like it was going to be a great spot, beautiful people in every nook and cranny, good music bumping, and we found a good spot to hang and check it all out. Then one of our buddies can't get in so we've got to leave it all for who knows where. My roommate Schulz, who is an AZ native suggests a place he knows up in Scottsdale, so we pool our money for a cab ride and make the journey up to the hinterlands on a whim and a prayer.

Somehow I separate from the pack, and as I look across the crowded room I spot absolutely the most drop dead gorgeous girl I've ever laid eyes on. Her blue eyes pierced my soul in an instant, and her smile nearly knocked me off my barstool, or whatever the hell I was sitting on because at that moment I could have been levitating for all I know. Straight out of the scene from Fast Times at Ridgemont High when Mark Rattner spots the cute girl from across the mall and she smiles at him, I turn around to see if there is some suave looking dude behind me that she's into, because I just don't get women that look that damn good smile at me for no reason. But when I see that nobody is behind me, everything changes, and I know that I'm the guy she's smiling at, and there is something about her that tells me all I've got to do is be myself and this is gonna take care of itself, so I turn on the charm and approach her. Well, first I stop and buy a rose, then I go over and introduce myself and ask her to dance. Luckily for me she only notices my smile and eyes, and overlooks my goofy haircut and complete lack of fashion sense.

As soon as we start dancing and talking at the table afterwards it's like we've known each other for years, like we were always supposed to meet and fall in love and have kids and live happily ever after and it was just a matter of when not if. We connect on a cosmic level, and somehow the universe had conspired to bring us together. After a night for the ages, we don't see each other for a few days, and after spending my 20th birthday together, we go another couple weeks until we see each other again, but all this time I know that I have been changed in some profound way by her and that something will come of this. When we see each other again the magic is even stronger, and although she tries to blow me off because I'm too young, I refuse to accept her premise and basically just hang around long enough that I become part of her wardrobe, like a comfortable shirt that you don't even remember where you got but you find yourself wearing it out.

And 18 years later here we are, the magic is still stronger than ever, and her beauty is as salient today as it was all those years ago. She is the love of my life and the light of my soul, and while I'm still not sure why she has put up with me all this time, I'm glad that she has and I hope that I make her half as happy as she makes me because that would be a hell of alot of happiness. I don't know where I'll be in another 18 years, but wherever it is, so long as she is by my side as my partner, my love, and my best friend, I'll be good to go. I love her with all my heart and all my soul, and more and more every day, and am thankful for every day that we have together.