Reunification Weekend, 1 year later

September 19 may be Talk Like a Pirate Day, but it is also, as etrace calls it, "Happy Erica Day!"

One year ago right now, I was getting off a plane in Chicago on the first day of Sukkot.

One year ago tonight, I walked through etrace's front door (possibly for the first time ever) and threw my arms around him (for the first time in almost 16 years).

One year ago tomorrow morning, he made me scrambled eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast. :-)

One year ago Saturday [er, I guess I mean Sunday, it was Saturday last year, but you get what I mean], I drove back over for what I thought was a quick half-hour possible booty call last goodbye, which turned instead into a three-hour heart-to-heart conversation that was the real beginning of knowing something powerful had happened. (Postscript: It also meant I was two hours late checking in to meet my dad for lunch... resulting in immense panic in two different cities and very nearly an actual phonecall to the police. Not the best way to inaugurate what would eventually become a new addition to the family! But by now Dad seems to have more or less forgiven us, though I bet my stepmother never will.)

Seven weeks later, we were ready to acknowledge our engagement to the rest of the world, but the real truth is, it kind of all happened on this same weekend.

***

Earlier this summer, on my first trip to the local mall that is a 15-minute walk from (now) our house, I encountered this sign in one of the teen-couture clothing stores:



I stood there and laughed, because I am so totally not their target audience for that sign, and yet it is so totally what I am experiencing. No, I am not who I was a year ago. I could not have predicted or even believed any of this a year ago.

It is so much more.