ANNIVERSARY

by Lisa

It’s been a year.

Last September, we went to the auction together.  His first auction was my (insert big number here)-th, and I liked feeling so confident with the scene.  Show ID.  Get a number.  Walk around the trailers full of treasures, touch and inspect.  Wait for your favorites to come into the hands of a helper, and know your price.  Go over your price just enough to get what you want, or sometimes, be surprised when no one else wants your object of desire and get it for a dollar.  Eat whatever the food stand is selling, and wear a hat no matter what the weather.

He bought a framed litho of a little girl in her Sunday clothes, the coolest thing we saw on the auction flyer. Something else ended up in his box, maybe comics or baseball cards, and with them came a handful of graduation photos from my grandpa’s high school.  His daughter joined us for a while.  It was a very good day.

Five days later, I failed to lock the door properly and an unwelcome visitor stopped by to beat the hell out of me and my small person.  We never went back to our little yellow cottage.  The landlords, a very nice retired couple, put it up for sale as soon as our things were carried out of the house, just because they didn’t want to think of what happened. I saw them at the same fundraising auction today, where they volunteer. Last year, they met my sweetheart and Mrs. Landlady was charmed by his tall-dark-handsome unassuming sweetness.  She complimented my good taste, and I blushed.  A year later, she is happy to hear that he’s still my sweetheart.

They got to hear today that my small person and I are doing well, thriving even, in the same good place we landed after the big fall.  We are home now, almost like we were home before, but with more people and more rooms and more pets.  Life feels normal again.

Next weekend is a mixed bag of anniversaries.  How do we mark the first year of full-time Together when the move happened because of a Very Bad Thing?

We throw out the bad, that’s what.  We plan a picnic, or order in, or go to a movie, or finish painting the bathroom together, and thank the stupid, violent man who invited himself into my little house for opening a wider door for us.

It’s been a year, sometimes easy and sometimes not, but I’ve never lived a better one.  Let’s celebrate.