David & Johanna

I met E at a bookstore in Hanau, Germany in 1960. She told me where to buy civilian clothes, and we fell into rhyme quickly:

JOHANNA IN A SERIOUS VEIN
JOHANNA IN A SERIOUS VEIN

Johanna in a serious vein
Is always at the edge
Of going insane.

Remembering British “Christmas Trees”
In Hanau in 1944,
A loaf of bread at three,
Her first rag doll when she was seventeen,

Fighting to stay alive
Or on top of it
When the sky split,
Huddling in the shelters
Of her parents’
False
Messiah.

I know her.
We struggle now together
In our four room flat.
She wanders Wednesdays to the City,
Takes a nap
On 41 D.

We met in a German bookstore in 1961.
I asked for Goethe
In English translation.

Called her SPERLING for sparrow.
In her self-imposed cage
She seemed broken.

Homely by her designation,
Radiant as that summer afternoon
By mine,
We had coffee and fell into rhyme
The coming week.

Blessed are the meek.
For I inherited her.
Her lot was not so kind, nor vast as mine might
Be.
She inherited me.

1976

Hollie and Barry

So Barry and I worked together at Shoprite for years. We were in the same group of friends but didn't get too close bc when they 'went out' I wasn't of age to join. But there was this older woman (I call her Cupid now) who told Barry that I wanted to ask him out. I didn't. A few days later she told me that Barry wanted to ask me out. He didn't. It was very strange. We started hanging out more and more thinking the other wanted the other one. Lol. I went away to college and only saw him on weekends but u could tell we were getting close. Then, the terrible happened. My grandfather died. Since he commited suicide I wasn't really open to sharing that with poeople so I came home from school for about a week and just spent it at my Nan's and the rest of the family. No outsiders, you know. When Barry heard I was home he got directions to my Nan's and that was it. He didn't leave my side for the whole thing. He became a part of the family that week. We all opened up to him and he was so comforting and accepting of us all. My Mom and Nan fell for him b4 I did, I think. Haha. I look at it now and think that my Pop brought him to our family to be that glue that we lost when he left. We all know Pop would've loved him. So... From there I finished a semester at school away, but transfered closer to home bc my family needed that at the time. That's when we got really close. Not together as a couple yet but best friends; inseperable. He moved in with me and my 3 other roommates and a few months later on xmas eve he wrote me a letter saying that he was falling in love with me and gave me a promise ring to be his gf. Of course I accepted and my family was thrilled. The next year on st. Pattys day. (He must have a thing for holidays lol) I was on a Cedar Crest trip to the Met museum and he came along. Little did I know that he had our whole family (both sets of parents and step parents and both siblings) there when we arrived. Only they were hidden. He got down on one knee on the steps of the met (my favorite place ever) and asked me to marry him. When I said yes he told me to turn around and everyone was about 5 steps up watching the whole thing (and balling). I found out later that he had called my Dad to ask for my hand and my Dad took him to an Irish pub and made him shoot Irish whiskey till he was delirious. Since he held his own my Dad said yes. So long as he stood by me as I fiinished my education and waited to have the wedding til after I had my bachelors.That happened and Barry kept his promise. We are getting married this fall. I guess the rest is ancient history.

Kim and Bill

Late one night I heard someone banging around in the hallway outside my apartment door. It was so loud, I finally got up to investigate. When I opened my door, a man fell into my kitchen—passed-out drunk. I tried to shove him back into the hall, but he was too heavy. Instead, I left him on the floor, went to my bedroom, pushed the dresser in front of my door, and went back to sleep. Not long after, I married the lug.

Kate & Nik

As I learned when I reread my original edition on this site, I have been telling this story in many different ways over the years. Let me now, in hopes of escaping that cringing moment when you stumble upon proof that you were indeed once young and really, really stupid, tell it once again in a manner that doesn't shame my entire being.

Nik was an overly-gelled, overly-cocky server at your average corporate restaurant. I was...the same, really. With less gel. We both cursed a lot, I remember. The aforementioned original edition gives evidence to both that, and to my (hopefully long dead) need to show off how against the grain I really was (I wasn't, I was just 18 and stupid.)

But yes, I was 18, and he was 22. We worked together and had a quite a jolly time ignoring one another for a month or two, save for a few obnoxious exchanges by the beverage station. Our first "date" was at a bar within a bowling alley with several of our esteemed colleagues. Our courtship flourished quite nicely for a few months, assuming courtship in the 00's can be sometimes defined as drinking buddies who kiss occasionally. We dated and drank and broke up now again over one thing (a returned ex-girlfriend) or another (the movie Waiting. With Ryan Reynolds. I'm not even kidding.) Our relationship, often fraught with disrespect and emotional drama, should not have survived beyond a year or so.

But that's where the real story lies, the one I'm still proud to tell. The two kids who were so badly run off the beaten path started growing up some. I've noticed that often when two really messed up people find each other, and then start to become slightly less messed up people, they find they have little and less in common. They grow up, grow apart, part ways. Nik and I grew up, grew closer, grew together.

Those years ago we started with a lot of late nights, a lot of cheap beer, a lot of bad arguments and a handful of breakups. Seven years later and we're a force as couples who've been together for a lifetime are sometimes not - call it dog-years, but what our relationship has endured has broken us down and put us back together as one.

In 2004, Nik and I met a really crappy restaurant in the mall. In early 2007, we moved in together with my then 3 year old son. On November 18th, 2008, Nik proposed to me outside Lincoln Financial Field before my first Eagles game. On September 6th, 2008, we were married. On January 13th, 2009 we had our first baby together, a beautiful little boy. On February 12th, 2010, we buried our son together. On August 12th, 2011, we had our second son together. We have taken jobs and lost them, entered school, left it, entered again. We've been broke and we've been comfortable. We've seen the best moments of our lives thus far together, and surely, the worst. Our story of love is as bumpy as they come, and I'm sure there's more ahead of us. But it's a story in a volume that's bound to be epic, and we add more to it every day.


/endcheese

The Birth

In the coming days, weeks, and on and on, I will be compiling and posting the love stories of friends, family, and strangers alike.

Funny stories, drunk stories and certainly stories with grit.

No two people get to love along the same road; pull out a map, folks, and let's get to traversing...