On October 8, 2012 I laid eyes on Shelly Drymon for the first time. Yesterday was our Five Year Meet-aversary. Life is Good.

It was not love at first sight 1,827 days ago. Maybe there is such a thing, but I have never experienced it. [I have however experienced “lust at first sight”….and I still do. Shelly is OK with that. Me too. 🙂 ]

It didn’t take me long to become smitten with Shelly. I’m pretty sure that it took her longer to fall for me.
She was exactly what I was looking for:
1. A Playmate. Someone to do things with.
2. What Jackson Browne sang about in “The Pretender”:
“…I’m gonna find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we’ll fill in the missing colors
In each other’s paint by number dreams
And then we’ll put our dark glasses on
And we’ll make love until our strength is gone…”

Shelly and I met at a site called OkCupid. I have archived the profiles that we had there 5 years ago. (I might even share mine here someday. Maybe not.)
She says she can’t remember what she wrote, but that she has changed a lot. Shelly’s right; she has. In reading my profile again from five years ago, I don’t think I have changed all that much. But I’m probably the wrong person to judge that.
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Our personal situations were quite a bit different then than now.

Shelly had just returned from a sabbatical in Colorado, learning a lot about herself and appreciating herself and her independence. There was the fellow down the street who had been her lover before she headed to Golden. She didn’t have plans to jettison him or have him or anyone else as a one-and-only.
Shelly had a job, but she wasn’t sure what would be paying the rent and buying the coffee in the future.

I had been seeing a lot of a woman who lived 40 miles away. She had been a good listener and had given me some good advice since the time we met a year earlier. When T. and I met there was lots of drama in my life. She helped me deal with that. T. & I had a lot of fun together…especially when we were naked. But she wanted a commitment, and not only wasn’t I looking for one, there were just too many differences in our interests.
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I had gone on the “playmate” quest again, without telling T. When I came out of the MudLounge that night 5 years ago I had a couple of texts and a voicemail from her. I lied to her about what I had been doing. I didn’t like doing that. But I knew that I needed to move on with someone new…and so did she. (T. was married a few months later…)

I am 14 years older than Shelly. I hadn’t yet filed for divorce from my wife of 38 years when we met. When Shelly & I met, I hadn’t spoken with my ex since two days before I drove away from Tampa 16 months earlier. We still haven’t spoken. (It’s complicated.)
My age and my marital situation were problems for some of the people I “met” online. Fortunately Shelly gave me a chance. I’m lucky.

I’m pretty much an open book, and my OkCupid profile described my perspective on life and living, although it did not mention my continual quest for revelry and the high life. My profile did include my favorite line from my favorite movie (“get busy living, or get busy dying” from Shawshank Redemption) and my favorite line from a genius who should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (“enjoy every sandwich”…the wisdom of Warren Zevon).

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I’ve got lots of “favorite Shelly stories.” I’ll share two of them.

1. I think it was the third time that we saw each other. We were going on a picnic at Fellows Lake. I wasn’t half a mile from the apartment, headed to pick her up, and a text from Shelly came in. The text was NOT meant for me.
“I’m going on a picnic at Fellows lk with this Steve fellow. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be a jerk!”
I was only a few blocks farther on when the “Ooops…LOL” text hit my inbox.
I laughed as I drove north on Fremont. We laughed when I got to her place. We laughed about it again yesterday, 5 years on.

2. Yesterday she gave me this card. I melted. I laughed. We hugged. It pretty much sums up where we’ve been and where we are.

I am one lucky guy. I’ve partnered up with someone who loves me in spite of all my quirks, someone who will let me be me, and someone who knows that when I sing along with Band of Horses on “No ones gonna love you” that I mean it….and vice verse.

I’m a very simple guy.
Sometimes things are pretty simple:
Tell the ones you love how you feel.
Don’t be stingy with your hugs.
Henry James said it best: “Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”

Be. Just Be.