Thank you so much for your lovely comments yesterday! We had a happy and peaceful day celebrating our ‘day of recognition’ – that day when you meet someone and even if you don’t fully realize it yet, something in you knows that everything has changed.
We were talking about our first meeting and the months that followed. We were seriously attracted to each other, of course. I was attracted but wary – just because that was my pattern in relationships. Anyway, we started seeing each other when we had some free time (both of us were in the middle of rehearsals for our productions) and eventually, his show closed and he had to leave for Arizona, where he had been cast in another show. I remember feeling relieved because I could get back to my normal schedule, which in reality meant that I wouldn’t have to deal with the fear I had about a serious relationship. Because I was scared.
No cell phones in those days. No text messages.
Every Monday night, which is the traditional day off in the theater, Don would call me – landline to landline – and we would talk for hours. HOURS! Our initial attraction was very physical. In the course of the phone conversations, we really got to know each other. We talked about everything. We shared our fears and insecurities, our past experiences…just two voices on the phone, with no competition from notifications on a cell phone, no distractions from Twitter or Instagram or a personal computer. (I didn’t have one yet, though I bought a Mac a few months later.)
And then the phone call would end and we’d have to wait another week to speak to each other. It was lovely. I had the space and time to really think about him. I wasn’t distracting myself with handheld devices. I was either working or home and that was it. But I wasn’t feeling the pressure I might have felt had he been in town. Eventually, as I got to know him more deeply, my fears began to fade away.
We were so lucky to live in that ‘no distractions’ world. We thought about that a lot yesterday and acknowledged that it would be an entirely different experience nowadays and not in a good way. We’d have had to dodge the selfies and constant temptation to post that are so much a part of daily living now. We would have lived in fear that someone at the theater would have snapped a quick picture of us (because who doesn’t do that now?) when we were trying very hard to keep our relationship private.
The world has changed so much in the past 28 years! How fortunate we were to meet when we did.
Stay safe.
Happy Tuesday.
So true…when you know, you know! Some couples just work. You were blessed and lucky to find each other…so were we. The world has changed a great deal since we met in 1970, and not for the better always.
Very hot and humid today with storms later. Good day to catch up on laundry, and other indoor things. Enjoy your day! ;)
We have rain coming later this afternoon.
Stay safe, Donnamae.
Long distance relationships were so different back then, weren’t they! But maybe in some ways, a little more romantic. I love your love story!
I personally think they were more romantic!
Stay safe, Jeanie.
That sounds utterly lovely for both of you. The first 15 years of our relationship, my husband and I lived in different states not that far apart, Rhode Island and Connecticut, but we both worked and so we saw each other once or twice a month. It was a real treat when we got together and we got to know one another really well with our conversations on the phone. We met in 1984 so there were volumes of letters and frequent phone calls. At one point we used to watch CBS Sunday morning and each of our respective homes and then discuss on the phone afterwards. We also did this with the Simpsons, Seinfeld, and peewees playhouse. The relationship evolved over a number of years using what is now old fashion technology. It worked for us and I’m glad it did for you and Don too.
What a lovely story, Nora! Yes, letters! Don wrote me letters while he was away and I have them still.
Stay safe.
Imagine the days before us when people could only correspond through letters sent in the mail and telegrams!
We had one phone at home when I was growing up, of course. And my parents wouldn’t want us tying up the line! I wrote a lot of letters to friends to keep in touch during summer breaks back then!
Yes. Don wrote letters to me while he was away. They were very romantic and I keep them in a special place.
Stay safe, Ellen.
dear Claudia/Don — what a great history for you two!!!! some things are “meant” to be, time and distance can’t get in the way, so good for you all. here, still hoping for rain but looks “spotty” at best. enjoy your memories and time together. thanks for sharing w/all of us. stay safe
You’re most welcome, Linda.
Stay safe.
I love this story…love this
Thank you, Brenda.
Stay safe.
I’ve loved hearing these new details about your courtship; it’s a lovely story. And your observations about distractions with ‘devices’ is so spot on. With my own beloved over the few decades, I have felt I’ve always been in competition with, first, the TV; the radio always on in the car when we were going anywhere; then when we got a home computer; next when he got an internet phone. Especially with the computer and phone (his solo activities of which I can’t participate and am essentially shut out), it’s like three of us at home, not two. It’s an ongoing discussion with us, me doing the complaining!
Funny, maybe not ‘haha’ funny, about guys and their electronics. I think I tend toward behaving like your husband. He’s always saying, could you put the phone away? I can’t seem to help myself, always wanting to Google an answer to a question. So you presented me with a good lesson here. Thanks, Vicki
I understand. So far, Don and I are sort of on the same level with our devices. But sometimes, one of us has to remind the other to “put it down!”
Stay safe, Vicki.
love your love story. sounds like you both had a nice anniversary and i am so happy for you and don that you found each other!
thanks for sharing such sweetness here (i am needing some today).
hope you are having a nice night.
stay safe.
kathy
Thinking of you tonight, Kathy. I hope tomorrow brings you something that you’ve been needing. You’ve been so kind to me at times when I’ve needed it.
XOXO
Martha (originally from Mason City, Clinton, Mt Ayr, and many others)
xo back to you, martha. thanks for your kindness, a sweetness of its own. :)
how are you? i hope you and those you love are safe, well, get more comfortable weather and that life is sweet for you all.
i’ve been to clinton, but not mount ayr (or san francisco). i lived in mason city for almost six years. lots of nice small towns around, but i am grateful to live much closer to most of my family now. :)
thanks again.
kathy
Hello again- it’s these little pieces here and the few interactions with neighbors and texting friends that help me get by. Family is too far to easily visit. Better weather to get work done.
Hoping you have some good time with family today.
hej, martha. :)
i am sorry that you can’t easily visit your family. hopefully you can use zoom, texts or calls to chat … and you all get to visit in person sooner than might seem possible right now.
glad if your weather was nicer so you could get stuff done. hopefully that included having some fun.
same here about things that help with getting through ….
may you have all you need and want.
thank you. i had a nice day here (except for missing the family members i can’t see), thanks to spending time with family members that i could see, going for a walk and a car ride, watching it rain and doing a bit of puttering.
hope you are having an easy day.
sending a hug (if you want) and keeping you all in prayers,
kathy
Glad to oblige! Hope your day today is sweeter, Kathy.
Stay safe.
enjoying a very dark, rainy morning here. i love this kind of weather! plus it is postponing a walk, literally slowing down my morning for the first time in weeks … all much needed. that helps, as does your kindness. thanks much, claudia.
hope you and don have a nice day again today.
xo,
kathy
xo
P S
I would love to read about where you lived after marriage
Why you moved
Just stories about your life
Short short little memoirs so to speak
Your life counts and matters to your readers
I’ve been blogging for 14 years, so all of those things have been written about in various posts more than once.
But I’ll try to write about them in the future.
xo
Claudia, congratulations on your anniversary! Long time reader rarely as commenter but I thought you would appreciate this. You are so right about the selfies, and all the interruptions to a budding romance. Years ago after both my parents had passed and I was cleaning out their house I found a huge box of telegrams, letters and postcards my Dad had sent my Mom during the beginning of the long distance relationship. I read a few and then decided it felt like an invasion of privacy. I tucked them away for future generations to read. It’s a love story that will read like a book to them.
I am a terrible letter writer, but both of the significant men in my life – my first love way back when and Don, of course – wrote beautiful letters to me. How lovely that you have those treasures from your mom and dad. Priceless.
Stay safe, Lisa.
What a neat story about the beginning of your relationship. And didn’t those years just race by. I will never forget the moment my future husband walked into my life and I mark that day too. The unbelievable thing is on January 3, 2023 it will be forty years (!!) since that day. Cannot wrap my mind around that.
We were an “office” relationship. It was my first day in a new position and he had just returned to campus after internships in D.C. and NYC to finish his MBA and had a graduate assistantship in the student affairs office next door. I wasn’t looking for a serious relationship but I knew…I just knew…the moment he walked through the door of our office suite that he was something special.
Wishing you both many more happy years together.
Kay
40 years! How wonderful!
That moment when you know is so powerful.
Stay safe, Kay.
I love your story Claudia. I look forward to it every year.
In June was what would have been my 32 wedding anniversary. Next week is another anniversary of sorts.
My advice to anyone lucky enough to be with the person they were meant to be with is…hang on tight. Life is fleeting.
Why is a sad moment in time called an anniversary? Anniversaries are meant to be celebrated.
Sorry, Claudia I’m a bit maudlin.
Thinking of you, dear Trudy. You are entitled to those feelings and I’m touched that you felt safe enough here to share them. I can’t imagine the depth of your loss. Much, much love to you, my friend.
Stay safe.
I loved your story. I suppose i never thought of that but now i will. Its our 40th anniversary of meeting soon and you brought back many memories🥰🥰
I’m so glad. 40 years is to be celebrated!
It’s important to celebrate not just the wedding anniversary but the anniversary of meeting!
Stay safe, Stacy.
Always loving every detail you share. So extraordinary & yet perfect as your lives together happened.
Reminded me, as well, of how difficult early romances happened in the midst of working so closely with coworkers who are like family, but not really —trying to make sure no one sees any hint until you can take it public. I was one of those who thought I had a similar relationship, which turned out to be that I was deluding myself.
Which brings me to why are there so few hetero guys in theatre?!
Eventually I found the good one or he found me.
I was so worried that my MFA students would catch on. Some of them were in the same show as Don. They were around all summer, as were we. One of the first things Don said to me when we started our relationship was that he would never embarrass me or put me in an awkward position with my students. As has been true the entire time I’m known him, he anticipated my concerns before I could even voice them.
I’m glad you found the good one, Martha.
Stay safe!