to be more precise, we met, face-to-face, ten years ago today. we had connected on a matching website... c winked at me from across a crowded chat room... I'm sure that she would say it was the other way around, but I remember it clearly. we began messaging back and forth, and, one message she sent sort of made me think that she was too young... "tell me a lil about yourself." she typed 'lil'. for some reason, that made me re-evaluate any kind of chance we may have. but then, on july 6th, 2005, my pal, georgia came over to my house. I was cooking dinner- organic fish sticks and macaroni and cheese. by this time, c and I had graduated to talking on the phone. while munching on fish sticks (hahaha), georgia asked who c was and where she lived. when she found out that c lived in erie, she went into full georgia mode- "you mean to tell me that you two haven't met and you live in the same city?! well, make plans to meet today, sweet mother of pearl!" I procrastinated, but c was okay with it. we made plans to meet at cvs on peninsula drive, and head down to the peninsula from there. as I changed my clothes and left, I'm pretty sure that I left georgia to her own defenses to polish off the fish sticks and mow my lawn (double hahaha). those were the days!
as I pulled into the cvs parking lot, c was already there. I parked beside her maroon alero. I think we hugged 'hello', or maybe just shook hands, got into my blue dodge stratus, and headed down to the beach. it was an unusually cold day for july. we sat on the beach for a little while- c on the blanket to my right, me gingerly sitting on the far corner of the blanket. the wind really kicked up after a bit, and we were both pretty chilly. around this time, c suggested going back to my car. we gathered our belongings, headed back to my car, and I drove her back to her car. we said our goodbyes, and she made a statement something like, "you think I'm a little too young for you, huh?" I muttered, "something like that", we hugged and went on our merry ways. *** I learned that what she really meant by going back to the car was for us to go for coffee or dessert or something. I apparently was not a good reader of hints.
after our meeting, we continued to talk on the phone and message each other on the computer.
exactly one week later, on july 13th, I was teaching summer school. the next thing I knew, I had a delivery. c had sent me flowers to work. when I called her on my break to thank her, she said, "since I know that you'll never ask me, i'll ask you... do you want to be exclusive?" I was taken by surprise, but stuttered okay, and the rest, as they say, is herstory.
happy ten years, Christine. I'm sure glad that you winked at me that day... and, I finally got the hint... here's your coffee/dessert.
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