Head Over Heels

When there's someone out there that makes you truly and completely happy, you feel the need to be close to that person because they make you feel complete, but at the same time, you also know you don't have to be there all the time because there is a connection between the two of you.

This was how The Queen differed from everyone else. I loved being close to her and every moment with her is golden, even now, but I also didn't feel the need to be with her every single minute of every day, like I did with some of the previous ones. I suppose with them, there was a level of paranoia that if I left the scene, they would forget all about me, where with the Queen, I didn't feel that way. I know there was a maturity there that I didn't have before, but there was also so much more than that.

We went out every night we could, and saw each other every moment we could. If we had days off from work, we would spend them together. Every evening, we would spend together doing something. We saw each other nearly every day from that kiss onward until we got married about a year and a half later, and we never got tired of each other. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

I remember the very next thing we did together (the following night) was go play mini golf. We were a couple for sure, so we very much acted like one. Probably indistinguishable from high schoolers at that point, we were so drunk on each other. I'm sure the old people found us just shameful, but that's their problem, right? We were having fun being truly connected to someone.

Neither of us had had a whole lot of luck when it came to relationships as a whole. We'd both gone through hell with certain people in our lives, and we'd made our various mistakes in who were trying to be with. We both got hung up on the wrong kind of people and prior to re-meeting, we'd both gone through a period of going out with random people without any intent of seeing them ever again.

The spark that went between us, then, was so significant and even liberating that we got high on it very easily. From a purely geek-ish perspective, it's like drooling over that $70,000 103 inch plasma TV you've been eyeing, and then someone just giving it to you. Walk into your living room one morning, the Wii is plugged into it and turned on with Metroid Prime III loaded up, and you're handed the controllers and have to physically turn your head to see everything coming at you... Yeah, just like that.

So it was intoxicating. But it wasn't all bouncing around, though. A little over a month after we got together, we were able to reach back to the past a little bit when we went to the Oklahoma Bandmasters Association Championship at OSU and be a couple around all of our band friends from high school. But we really didn't see anyone significant from the past days that would have even been interested in our actually having come back together after so long.

We didn't have a firm schedule that we followed when it came to what we did, but there were a few days that we did almost the same thing every week. One thing she opened me up to was line dancing...yeah, at a country dance club. On Tuesdays, they had a night of no cover charge, and we always went there on Tuesdays, even for a little while after we got married. I admit that I enjoyed it to an extent. I do find dancing enjoyable, especially the choreographed, yet customizable, line dances. The biggest bummer to that place was that we always came home smelling like smoke (and neither of us have ever smoked).

On Wednesdays, we had dinner with my family (usually at Mazzio's), did something random right after that, and then had coffee at Java Dave's. On Fridays, we had dinner with her family. Saturdays was our bigger date night, and on some of those nights, we found ourselves playing pool at a gaming place. The other days, we figured out something to do, but it was never the same thing. We had fun.

On weeknights, I got her home by 10:30, and we usually talked on the phone after that for sometimes an hour or more. One such conversation had her talking about what she was looking for in a relationship. She said she wanted the fairy tale. You know, the knight in shining armor rides up to the tall tower and rescues the princess. He sets her on the saddle of his trusty horse and rides off into the sunset with her to live happily ever after.

Was she in distress? No. Her family is very kind and protective of her...even now. But she'd been through some bad guys and wanted the dream every girl has of having someone who will always be there for her to protect her and take care of her. The knight in shining armor is more than just the random prince; he is that protector who promises that none of the evils of the world will come after her; he keeps her close to his heart and acts for her -- in her honor, as it were.

I'd heard her stories. I knew the unpleasantness of how she'd been treated and even insulted by the swine she'd come across. I wanted to take her away from the ogres of her past and protect her in a castle far away from all of them. I told her I'd be her knight in shining armor. I wanted to be her castle.

The Queen told me about the moment she knew she was going to spend the rest of her life with me, and I remember the moment as well and it was not long after we'd had that conversation. We were on the pedestrian bridge that spans the Arkansas River, looking out over the edge at the river (it wasn't all dried up at this time of year). I'd given her my jacket because she was feeling a little cold, and as we stood there, I wrapped my arms around her.

It was a truly peacful moment. The world was quiet all around us except for the water rushing under the bridge, and she dropped her head back against my shoulder. We didn't say anything but just absorbed the surroundings and the company of each other. I don't know how long we stood there, but remembering it always reminds me of the movie poster for Message In A Bottle, though I've, ironically, never seen the film. But the heroine is leaning against her hero, just looking out over the water.

We've had some cherished moments, but of everything, that is probably the singular most peaceful moment I can think of, partly because it was so quiet that day on the bridge so that in my head, all I can hear is the wind and water, and partly because I picture that perfect couple scene in movies such as the one I mentioned. It's an almost iconic defining scene that if ever a film were made of our lives, that moment would get as much screen time as one could get away with.

What happened the rest of that day? No clue. I can piece it together, but it's kind of like the kiss; after a moment so significant, everything else is just mundane.