Landmark Bench-O-Versary

When you are childless not-by-choice, time works differently. There aren't milestones connected to your kids -- no birthdays, no graduations, no cultural celebrations, no dances... all of those things that people with kids track over time don't exist for us. So, we decided to celebrate the crap out of our own milestones. 

I am not embarrassed that we celebrate our Bench-o-versary, our Engage-o-versary, our (two) wedding anniversaries (the legal one and the wedding one). Why not? 

What is a Bench-o-versary? Well, it's the anniversary of our first date. And, it blows my mind, but our first date was TWENTY YEARS AGO. A feat I feel particularly proud of because we both had other lives first.

Let me tell you a story. Once there were two people who either went through or were going through difficult divorces, and they each had friends who thought it would be a great idea for them to join Match.com. Neither of them wanted to. Both of them did, because their friends were like, "do it, it will at the very least be an ego boost, and you don't have to do anything if you don't want to. Just give it a try." Fine.

Try we did. (Ditching the third person, it's weird.) We each put up THE MOST HONEST PROFILES we possibly could. They read like, "this is me, this is what I want, this is what I don't want, I do not care if this makes me unattractive to you because if it does, you're probably a douchecanoe anyway." Neither of us put pictures up. Back then, you didn't have to. 

In late May, I got a "wink" from some guy named Plawosok (later it was revealed to literally be just letters on the keyboard in a zig-zag pattern). I checked him out. Okay, ambitious...check. Compatible interests? Hiking, music, animals, reading, adventurous eating, NPR... check. Wants someone who plays no games and isn't afraid to get her hands dirty (for me, literally in the garden) and likes a good meal? Check. Smart and humorous and a bit nerdy? Check. 

So I connected with him. And we emailed back and forth for a little bit, until we sent pictures finally. His: a picture in a hat, big smile. Mine: from my 30th birthday in my cubicle at the human resources place I was working at through my Master's of Education, with a birthday headband and push-pins making a happy face behind me. Both of our friends approved. 

So, on June 6th, 2006, we met after my 11-8 shift (call center services, yay, but it also allowed me to get my fieldwork done in the mornings without missing any work) for coffee in a walkable area in our city. Yep, coffee. At 8:30 pm. 

He was ADORABLE. Very cute, very TALL, nerdy in the best possible ways, but also hot. Coffee turned into walking and talking around the neighborhoods. Walking and talking turned into sitting on a bench (hey! there's the bench!) in a park on a corner, which turned into smooching, which became the start of the best parts of my life. 

So, this is our twenty-year Bench-o-versary, and I am so so grateful that we both gave Match a chance even though it seemed cringey and weird. I am so so grateful that this was pre-Tinder and all the swiping, because we might not have found each other that way. Also, we might not have ever found each other without the online dating platform, even though we are so well suited to each other, which makes me feel even more lucky that we did. 

Normally we try to take a picture on a bench to commemorate -- sometimes at a park, sometimes our own bench at my corner garden.... but I am down and out with a horrid respiratory infection and am not to go outside lest it further trigger my drowning lungs. So no bench picture this year. 

But, yay to 20 years. Yay to our time together, for the incredible changes to my life that have happened as a result. I am so grateful for our life together, and that Plawasok (or however it was spelled) digitally winked at me and started this whole adventure.

Our actual park bench on our 10th Bench-o-versary, only pic I could find!