The Day MY World Ended

*Writer's note: I wrote the bulk of this in May 2015, nearly a year after I went on my first date with my wife. I was scrolling through past blog posts, and drafts, when I found this. As I edit it, it's 9:44 at night, and she is vacuuming the house. About an hour ago she randomly decided to start cleaning the kitchen. The cats scattered, getting out of the way of her cleaning rampage. I locked myself in my office to write. She's cleaning because we have a dozen or so guests coming tomorrow for a celebration of the Goddess Esther.

It's now been nearly two years since our first date, and I still think it's been the finest times I've ever experienced in life. She's still magic to me. Enjoy my words from over 10 months ago.



I could write a lot of things about how the universe conspired to bring my wife and I together for our first date.  But I really hate overly sappy, wordy romance shit.  Basically, I never want to sound like a Nick Sparks wannabe.

My wife and I had our first date a year ago.  I never would have guessed then, that our life today would be what it is.  What I knew then, was that she was gorgeous, intelligent and the most fascinatingly different human being that I'd ever met.  At some point, a few days after our date, I said "fuck it.  This will be fun." We became a couple.  That is when MY world ended, and OUR world began.

It has not been a rose garden, which is good, because roses aren't her favorite flowers.  What it has been, is the most amazing year of my life.

Sometimes I find myself watching her, when she doesn't know that I'm watching.  She is art in human form, a perfect storm of intrigue, curiosity, psychosis and spirituality.  Tom Robbins wrote a line in the book "Another Roadside Attraction," that describes exactly how I feel about my wife.  He wrote, "she is a religion unto herself."  She, more than anyone I've known, lives each day by feeling.  Those feelings are powerful, and she allows them to dictate her daily life.  She is the perfect "ying," to my "yang" of sorting things out with logic.

She will immediately point out her "flaws."  She will tell you that she's moody.  I will say that she is never boring.  She will say that she's middle aged.  I will say that she's the most beautiful woman I know of any age.  In fact, she is everything that I could possibly want in a partner, plus some.

Because of my wife, I became a writer.  You might ask, "you weren't a writer before you dated your wife?" That is a fair question.  The answer is no.  I wrote things before I dated her.  Sometimes I wrote a lot of things.  I rarely shared those things with others.  I definitely wasn't secure enough to call myself a writer.

I remember the first poem of mine that she liked.  "Knickknacks" is one of the finest poems I've ever penned.  When I shared it with her, she told me that is was one of her favorite poems of all time.  She tells me still, that it's in the top 5 of poems that I've written.  I remember how accomplished I felt, that I wrote something that she liked.  It inspired me to write another one.  Then to write more.  Still today, I write, hoping to impress her.  She has consistently encouraged my writing.  Asking me daily, "have you written anything today?"  She is the perfect muse.

Here's to another year, another 10 years, for our lifetimes, or for as long as you'll have me Libby.

All my love,

Dan