24 Years Ago

It was a Friday and I had graduation rehearsal at Regis.  I clearly remember having a conversation with my friend, Stacy, about the guy I had met the night before.  I clearly remember having a feeling about this guy, you know, like he was something special.  
I met Danny on May 19th, 1988.  I have already written about that fateful night.  The phone call that never came.  The baby pigs never seen.  The twenty seven inch waist I followed up the stairs.  The Bud Light bottle. 
It is the approximately eight thousand, seven hundred sixty days that followed that I would like to talk about now.  I have to say approximately because with leap years and time zones and world travel, I don't think a definate count is possible.  Anyway...
We dated for nine months and then became engaged.  We were engaged for a year.  During our dating and even our engagement, things could get ugly.  Because we were so young, there was an awful lot of growing up for us to do.  Petty fights, empty threats, jealous rants.  But under all of that was a true love.  I remember my sister, Sheila saying "the stupidest thing you will ever do is break up with Danny."  She would have been right!
The Lord knows that we have had a fair share of crazy in this marriage.  But it almost never felt like more than we could handle.  When it did feel like more, it was because we working against each other and not as that ever powerful undefeatable force of us. 
Back to my point.  Twenty four years ago today, I would never have believed that I would be here today.  Gone are my writer's dreams.  Gone is the apartment in Chicago or Europe.  Gone are the cigarettes.  Funny to think that a twenty seven inch waist was all it took to save me from a life of rejection slips, high rent and lung cancer.
I never would have imagined any of this.  Twenty four years ago tomorrow I was a high school graduate.  I was going to attend college and then go out on my own...funny how plans change.