Chapters Of You And Me

Chapters Of You And Me

Happy Anniversary, Beanie Boy

Love Always, Gary The Snail

 I once wrote some poems called I Wonder and New Closet. They spilled out all of the thoughts and feelings I was trying to understand after you were gone, for forever I had thought.

 After you disappeared on a journey that I could not be a part of.

 And I spent years wondering new things, never quite ridding you from my mind, leaving the door of our closet of memories open just a crack, just enough so I could peek inside without waking anything up, without disrupting the layer of dust that had accumulated on all the things that made us us.

 Old beanies and song lyrics, nicknames and inside jokes, Piano notes, and cheap mall pretzels, skipping school and throwing punches, with the best of intentions of course.

 Days when I thought I couldn’t love you more, and that I never would again, not realizing that I would never stop.

 I wrote of moving on, which I believe I have, I will always love and fondly think of the long-haired, baby-faced boy, dressed in button-ups and beanies I met one fall day in 9th grade.

 But to love the man that boy has grown into, is one of the greatest privileges of my life, to build a future with the man Beanie boy grew up to be, is something I never could have expected, but I know somewhere deep down there really was no other option for me, no other option for us but each other.

 So maybe that heart of yours I thought got packed away like an MRE, just had to start beating in tune with mine again. Maybe I just had to listen a little harder to hear it properly.

 Nowadays I wonder about different things like if our mini me’s will have eyes as blue as yours that I can also fall in love with every time I look into their waves.

 If our wedding will be as crazy as we expect it to be, surrounded by old and new friends, some who remember the disaster we once were, and the moments we first fell in love, and some who have only known the amazing pair that we have become.

 And now, I write new poems, but best of all I have become the coauthor of a life I never dreamed we would have, at least not a dream I dared to share with you way back when.

 You have shown me so many new ways to love and be loved, and I cannot wait to write all of the new chapters waiting in the future of our love story, we have reached past our great reunion, and begun the scribblings of our forever, one line at a time.

 One day we’ll start Chapters of May and Tyler, and maybe even more.

 Chapters of new homes and new jobs, new friends, and old ones with new memories, our children playing side by side.

 But at the heart of every story that unfolds in our odyssey, it began with a couple of kids, way too young to understand what began the day they met, too scared to even hope for what we have and will continue to become, but maybe just brave enough to not be surprised, because deep down we knew a thing or two about what was always meant to be.

14) I could not be more grateful for all of the chapters of you and me, good and bad, because they created we.

15) And what comes next in our forever? We just have to wait and see.