Ten Years, More Or Less

It was roughly ten years ago.  I was down on my luck.  I'd just lost my job, laid-off from doing phone technical support for an outsourcing company which had, in turn, off-shored my job.  That's the way these things go.

Life had gotten in the way of school, so I had no degree (I wasn't really motivated to get one anyway), and no prospects.  So, feeling a great sense of shame and more than a little depressed, I packed up such belongings as I had and moved out to Clyde, TX where my parents lived.  Clyde, just outside of Abilene, is a vast metropolis of about 3000 souls.  Abilene is closer to a 'real' city, but the area was much more rural than my accustomed surroundings in the Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex.

Thus I started looking for a job.  The prospects in Abilene weren't great, and I'm sure my moderate circumstantial depression didn't help.  It took quite a while, but eventually I landed a job at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas as a claims processor.  I started training in July.

It was in that class that I noticed two other people with whom I had anything in common.  One was a gamer (table-top RPGs) like me, the other was quiet, sardonic, and liked to read- like me.  The first was cute in a "sharp elbows" kind of way, the other in a more full-figured sort of way.  No, you're not getting measurement descriptions.  The first was single, the other married.  Not being stupid, I pursued the one who was single.

That didn't work out so well.  Oh, I'm virtually certain, even to this day, that she was interested, but I refuse to put up with the games most girls play, so it never went anywhere.  On the other hand, I was having fun (like real fun- we'd have conversations and make fun of our co-workers in the breakroom fun) with the other one.  I got her to read Mere Christianity.  I kicked her chair (the first time was just to get her attention as I said 'by' for evening, after that it was to see her jump.  Hey, she was married, and I was in denial.  Sue me.).

It was when she was going through divorce and announced that she was planning to go home to Michigan that I realized I didn't like that idea.  Part of that is because I think everyone should love Texas as much as I do, but part of it was that I realized I wouldn't like it if she left.  So I asked her to stay.

That was how we started dating.  On August 7, 2004, she made the incredible mistake of saying "I do," and signing a marriage license.  I'm not sure how I conned her so completely, but I'm glad every day that I did.

Happy anniversary, honey.

Aphrodite or My wife?