This is not a Valentine's Day post

Twelve years ago, I had no idea that when I sat at my sister's computer, inputting a handful of search terms into a website that has long since disappeared into the ether, that I was going to change my life forever.

But then I hit enter, and within a few seconds up popped a list of matches, and there he was, at the very top, as if the internet gods had conspired together over cables and pixels to say, "You don't need to search any further. We have the sum of all knowledge here in the folds of our servers, and we know, and soon, you will know."

And within two months - two months of emails and messages and phone calls that stretched for hours put passed in seconds - I knew.

I knew that I was in love.

I had no idea what that meant, though I thought at the time that I knew fully and completely what it was to love. But in those twelve(!) years, I have loved more and deeper and with a painful awareness of failure and loss that ultimately - if you can outlast it - strengthens what it tears at and creates something new and old and wonderful and terrifying in its significance.

He told me on that first date, a little over two months after that impulsive search, "I'm not a patient man. I'm going to kiss you now." And he did. And part of me knew in that instant that my life was different now. Part of me - the part that makes lists and had been accepted to law school and believed in organization and planning - would hold out for almost another week before it too saw what the beautifully irrational part of me that lived on fairy tales and iridescent dreams had already realized. I was in love with this man.

And so a few months later we married. Technically it was on our fifth date, but we spent every night on the phone together. I changed my parents' long distance plan to save me money. We tried to limit it to an hour a night, but it was impossible. One hour became two, and sometimes three, and to the chagrin of both sets of parents occasionally four.

And now, we spend each night together. He is my protector - some times from others, some times from myself - and my best friend. And he hasn't gotten any better at being patient. He still has to kiss me, and I see in his eyes today a greater fulness of what I thought was complete twelve years ago. He loves me beyond any correlation to my worthiness or deserving. He loves me. Me. Flawed and fragile me.

Somehow, he thinks he is the lucky one in this relationship. I'm not sure how someone so smart can make such a basic error of logic. I am the one that has the luck in this relationship. I won the jackpot in the online dating lottery, and it's still paying dividends.

I love you, GeekBoy. Thank you for loving me.