29 Years Later

April 8 - Then and now...

Twenty-nine years ago on this day Geoff and I were finally married.  I say finally because it was a journey to get here.  Even now as I contemplate writing about it, I am overwhelmed by the insanity of it all.  Mostly on my part.  No.  Purely on my part.  I was nuts.  And still he married me.  I love him so much.

We were originally going to be married in early December of 1981.  But wait, let's start at the beginning.

Geoff and I met on January 15, 1980 on his 25th birthday at the Mason Jar in Phoenix, AZ.  I had gone with some friends to hear this band called "Blue Shoes" and so had Geoff.  I remember he asked all my girlfriends to dance - but not me.  And I didn't care.  That was cool.  There were plenty of other people to dance with and I did.  Turned out he developed a friendship (crush) with my roommate, Barbara, and so we began to run into this Geoff guy all over town.  They would sit and talk for hours while I danced.  I couldn't figure it out.  This was back in the New Wave/Punk days and I was into it.  I need to drag out some old photos and scan them.  I would be dressed in my red and black zebra shirt or some sort of jumpsuit and Geoff was in his blue oxford button down and khakis.  I was as close to the mosh pit as I could get without getting hurt and he was on the fringes really dancing.

Then that fateful day came when Barbara was shipped off to Puerto Rico on a 2 week business trip and Geoff and I ran into each other out at some club.  We started to chat, he asked if I'd be there the next night, I said I would and he said that was cool, he'd be there too and I asked if that was a date and he said sure.  (We're so romantic.)  And so it began.  After that we were inseparable.  Chemistry took over and the rest is history and in this case I'm using the definition of history which means "an eventful past".

All was well for the first year or so when we were happily hanging out with friends, dancing the nights away (I gave up the mosh pit) and generally passing time.  And then Geoff's employer decided to transfer him to Houston, TX.  WHAT?  That was not in the plan.  Something had to be done.  He asked me if I would consider going with him.  I asked if that meant getting married or just tagging along.  He had to think about that one.  A few days later in the frozen food section of the grocery store he finally said he wanted us to get married.  Proposal.  In case you missed it.  :o)

Later that week he made up for it by sending me flowers and asking me to marry him again.  I sent back a potted plant with a card that said, "YES"!  When I read that I think, "what?"  But that's how it happened.  By the way, we still have the plant.  It's in our breakfast room and it reaches the ceiling.  How cool is that?  (The flowers are long gone, but not the heart behind them!)

So we set the date and began to plan a wedding for December 5th.  At this point Geoff had already moved to Houston and I was still living in Phoenix.  My roommate and best friend had moved to Pittsburgh and everything was changing.  I was working at Westinghouse and those people were my family.  I loved that job.  But it was time to move on so I transferred to a Westinghouse located in the Houston area, we rented an apartment and I began to plan a wedding.  I am not a planner.  I cannot stand weddings if they're my own.  And I do not enjoy working with others to plan my own wedding - especially if the groom is living hundreds of miles away and counting on me to do it all.  This is not my strength and it became very clear as time progressed.

Without getting into so many details that I drone on and on and begin to sound like a whiner, suffice it to say that I successfully alienated my future mother-in-law, purchased my own ring, worked my tail off addressing invitations, dealing with food people, chapel people, hall people, flower people, all with the help of a priceless friend named Marilyn.  I began to think I was marrying her.  She walked beside me every step of the way and I would be remiss to not mention her here.

Several days before the wedding was to take place I got the worst case of cold feet you can imagine.  My roommates and I were having to move out of our super cool house so I was surrounded by boxes and gifts and chaos and all I could think was "I am about to move to a new city, start a new job, be married to this guy I've lost touch with and slightly resent for all this insanity we refer to as a 'wedding' and suddenly I just couldn't do it anymore.  I called Geoff and told him I was calling off the wedding and of course he panicked and flew home to talk me out of it.  Barbara was to be my maid of honor and he enlisted her to aid in his attempt to bring me back to sanity so she flew in from Pittsburgh.  And I sat in my house surrounded by boxes and cried and panicked and didn't eat or sleep or change clothes for days with Marilyn by my side.  It was ugly.  But I persisted.  I got my job back.  I moved in with Marilyn.  I sent back all the wedding gifts.  I cancelled flowers and food and buildings and somehow got the word out that there would be no wedding and then I started to drink.  (As I read back over this I realize I was so engrossed in myself and my hysteria that I rarely thought of Geoff and the mess I put him in as he lived in the aftermath.  Geez.  He married me anyway.  I love him.)  And for several weeks Geoff and I didn't speak.  Then it became obvious we'd have to in order to work out all the financial devastation I had caused.  That's when it happened.  We talked.

When I said earlier that I had lost touch with Geoff it was because all we began to talk about was this wedding and how to pay for it.  We didn't just talk anymore or share our hearts - we were too far away to hold onto each other.  The connection was dangerously low.  But as we began to talk on the phone again we slowly reconnected.  He began to write me the most incredible love letters.  He became the Geoff I always loved but had thought I had lost.  And then he asked me to come visit.  We kind of knew we would get married during that week.  We weren't sure how it would look or where it would take place.  We didn't have a plan.  When I arrived we decided to drive.  We headed out to Austin, TX the state capital thinking maybe we'd get married there.  But Geoff got cold feet that day so the next day we drove on to San Antonio.  In San Antonio we decided to do it.  We checked in to our hotel and went to find the Bexar County Courthouse.  We had our blood tests, got our license (I'll never forget they gave us a little plastic bag of household stuff to start us off with - cleaning supplies, etc. that we drug around with us the rest of the day) and we sat down to wait for the judge.  There was one other couple there to be married so when he appeared we stood in as their witnesses.  After he had married them he thought he was done, that we had come to support them.  We had to tell him we were there to be married too so they stood in as our witnesses.  How funny.  And that was it.  We were married.  We walked down the River Walk, found a table outside in the extreme heat and had a margarita to celebrate.  Then we went back to our room and called our parents.  Mine were thrilled.  Geoff's mother answered the phone and when she heard my voice she handed it to his dad and said, "It's for you".  (Several years later she forgave me and all was well.)

By the way, I only regret part of this story - the part where Geoff got hurt.  I wish we'd just planned to elope in the first place.  It would have saved us a lot of time, money and heartache.  Oh, and he forgave me.  And finally we can go to a wedding and he doesn't say, "we could've had all those gifts."  Time heals.

And we lived happily ever after.  Moral of the story...elope.  Follow your heart.  Be happy.  The sun will come out tomorrow.