Day 4,189—14 Years Ago—

 

        My wife and I got married on her parents’ farm, on a beautiful fall day. Fall has always been my favorite season. The weather isn’t too hot or too cold. Everyone gets to accessorize with coats, hats, and gloves. The temperature is a mix, like it is today. It is hot, yet there is a cold breeze. It seems to come from another world.

        I worked at Elsevier then. I was part of the technical support team. I answered the phone for over a dozen different websites and platforms. I worked at home, and we lived down the street from where we live now. Sarah worked at Gallagher Basset, which was an insurance agency that handled claims for different companies. We both worked in Maryland Heights when we had to go into the office, which is close to Creve Coeur Lake, so we would go there for lunch sometimes. We used to eat at Arby’s because they would have a deal where we could both get lunch for under $5.

        After we got married, we flew to Belize the next day and spent a week there. I shot a lot of footage from the honeymoon. I planned to make a video of our trip, but I never finished it. Now, I don’t know if I have the footage anymore. If I knew then what I know now, I am not sure how it might have changed things. In life, there are so many chances and gambles. You never know exactly how things might work out when you roll the dice in any major decision. Here we are, so many years later. We have all the things we could have hoped for. Some of those things you can point to, like our house and cars. Many of the things aren’t physical. They’re in the air, intangible, seemingly evanescent or ephemeral, but in reality, they are as solid as tree roots and as hard as diamonds.