Valentine's Day

Owen and I really fell in love for the second time one Valentine's Day, in 2003.

See, back then I was still a passionate hippie and I wanted to come down to New York to protest the then possibility of war in Iraq. I could have stayed with any one of my friends who lived in New York by that point, but I asked if he would like to spend Valentine's Day with me...and take me to the protest.

Only because he must have really loved me, a very conservatively dressed Owen took me, and my protest sign, into New York that morning. There were cops everywhere- and activists who were more about anarchy then protest. In the end, they were hearding up and arresting so many protesters that Owen made me fold up my sign, and walk with him up to a police officer, and ask how to get out of all that mess. The cop must have assumed we weren't part of all that melee, and we were safely back in Owen's grandfather's Olds, heading back to Newark, within a few minutes.

Then it started to snow...

It snowed almost two feet of snow. We were trapped... in Newark. I couldn't make it back to Cambridge for my classes. We were snowbound together in his tiny, smokey dorm room with only the food we could get out of the vending machines in the lobby.

We had a great time at first, but by the time I left two days later I was scared of what I'd missed at school, hungry for food that didn't come from a vending machine, and snapping at Owen to get me to the bus station to go home. I have a bad habit of taking it out on him when I'm unhappy.

Still, I missed him the whole way back and called him to let him know it when I got back to Harvard square. I realized it was better to be stuck with him watching old Simposons episodes and illegally downloading every song we could think of off of his college server than to be without him and free to do whatever I wanted in the cleared Cambidge streets. That's love.

We've had a lot of super fun, totally over-the-top Valentine's Days since that one- for sure.

This year we had a steak dinner at home. We brushed our teeth and went to bed early. I'm impressed if I make it past eleven anymore, and he leaves for work pretty early. This weekend our plans involve very little other than errands and getting the nursery together. This is the last Valentine's Day that we will spend as just husband and wife and nothing more- not mom and dad quite yet. I wouldn't have thought it five years ago, snowbound in Newark, eating twizzlers and goldfish, but I wish I could be snowbound with Owen all of my life.

Happy Valentine's Day- to my best friend.

**The photos here are of the two of us circa 2003, and of the Oldsmobile...as much a part of our early love as any car could be:)