Today is my husband's birthday. He is 28. We met when he was nineteen. I didn't know he was only nineteen. He struck me as much older. He had this poise and maturity I didn't think any nineteen-year-old guy could have.

He brought me soup once; in Hilo. It was the day before Spring Break started and I was sick. I was going to go to Maui with my friends Heidi and Cub (not his real name, but he was from Kansas and I guess that's a typical nickname for Kansas types). Cub, unbeknownst to her, had it bad for Heidi. He asked Heidi to go with him and she said she'd go only if she could bring along a girlfriend.

It's also our anniversary month. It'll be five years on the 17th. How the hell did that happen? Five years. Jeez.

The darling was coming back here, to O'ahu, to visit his mama, and he wanted me to feel better so I wouldn't have to be sick on Maui. So he knocked on my dorm door, and when I opened it, he had a little container with a lid on it, and told me he wanted me to feel better. I think I knew, right then, that he was the guy for me. I felt comfortable around him; no need to babble or overanalyze every little thing we said to each other, because we were best friends. No guy had ever tried to be my friend first, and, certainly, no guy had ever brought me soup.

One thing I remember very vividly from that trip was a moment--standing on a street in Lahaina, across from the Hard Rock Cafe, wondering if O'ahu was one of the islands that I could see off in the distance, wondering what Ryan was doing, and it hit me right then that I missed him. I wanted to fly over there (here) and be with him and I could not wait until Sunday night when we'd both be back and I could see him again.
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About a week later, at the school's weekly coffee house thing, I stood in the corner with my friend Heather and told her about the revelation I'd had on the street and she said, "What are you waiting for? Go out with him".

So I did.

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