Museum of Me: February 2023

Hello and welcome to The Museum of Me. February seems like the perfect time for this month's installation: How did you meet your spouse/significant other? 

My story starts in high school, in Great Books during my sophomore year. This was an English class where we read great books and then discussed them in class. Once we had finished reading that week's assigned great book, we were free to read whatever we chose. I sat next to Phyllis, a cool senior who read books I had never heard of, like Breakfast of Champions, The Onion Field, All Passion Spent, and Valley of the Dolls. They were not all great books, but Phyllis introduced me to Kurt Vonnegut and Vita Sackville-West. We became friends and I got to know her family - her brothers Jim, John, and Mark, and sister Nancy. 

Phyllis graduated two years before I did, but since I had become friends with the rest of the family, Jim and I started spending time together. He took me for motorcycle rides, we sat and talked, and I had dinner at his house. We were just friends without any romantic involvement but I'm grateful to Jim for getting me through some awkward high school years when I felt out of place everywhere. 

I'm not really sure I can explain this next leap, other than it happened somehow. My friendship with Jim kind of faded away, but then his younger brother John asked me if I wanted to go to a basketball game. He picked me up which gave me the idea that this might be a real "date" since he had to drive an extra half hour to do it. It was in the middle of winter and when I was getting into the passenger side to head home, I slipped on some ice and ended up under the car. John didn't run over me but helped me up and that marked the start of us spending time together. We also went on motorcycle rides and talked, but eventually, he held my hand and even kissed me. John's father was a very direct person that said exactly what he was thinking, so I was afraid of what he might say when I went to their house for dinner with John. And he didn't disappoint, saying "I've only got one other son for you to spend time with" as soon as I walked in the door. We all laughed and things were fine after that. 

John and I dated for a while but broke up when I went to college. I'm a year older than he is, so I was anxious to see what being on my own was like and we were four hours away from each other. He stayed friends with my mother (which I thought was weird at the time), so we started spending time together again after he graduated from college. He went to Florida for graduate school, I found a job and went with him, we "lived in sin" for a while (that's what my mother called it), and got married in 1981. We've been married ever since. Retirement is testing that a bit (I'm not cut out for all that togetherness!) but he's really a good person even on days when I wonder if we'll make it to our next anniversary. 

So that's how I met my spouse, through being friends with his sister Phyllis and older brother Jim. Jim has since passed away from malignant melanoma, but Phyllis and I email every week. She's still much cooler than I am and I'm lucky to count her as a friend and sister-in-law. I didn't just gain a husband when I married John, I became part of a wonderful family.

So how about you? I'd love to hear about how you met your spouse or significant other and hope to visit a few more Museum of Me posts to hear the stories or read them in the comments. We'll be back on the second Friday of March with a brand-new installation. Thank you for visiting The Museum of Me!