Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Post-o-Rama

(Once you get me talking, it's hard to shut me up. )

Stories
My husband and I met over words. Way back in the stone age of the internet (late 1998), we each signed up with the online personals in a local "alternative" weekly newspaper, sort of accidentally. After work one day (during a loooong dry spell), I was on this paper's website looking through the classifieds for a roommate. Came upon the "personals" service and decided "What the hell? It's anonymous. It's free. Let's see what kind of freaks I get email from." I put together my little profile and let the dating gods do what they would.

C signed up almost in defiance of his friends, as this seemed to be reaching the last resort, to "show them I would never meet anyone."

He sent me an email. He was the third guy to write. It was smart. It was funny. It had potential. I wrote back. He wrote back. Our emails got longer and longer. I remember writing that it was like having a really great conversation, where you have so much you want to share, and so much you want ask. I found myself checking email every morning at work and finding an email from him. After a couple of weeks, we met for coffee (what else?) and talked and talked and talked. One of the things I love best about our relationship is our ability to really communicate.

So we're a wordy couple. This is a long way way of saying that my husband has posted a very long account of our nightmarish adventure on his blog. I've posted links to each of the 5 (yes five) sections, plus conclusion in the sidebar. I haven't checked to make sure each link works appropriately, but will do that when I finish this post. Here's the first installment, if you'd like to read it and haven't already checked out his blog.

Our own Rashomon
I vacillated as to whether I would read his account, and then whether I would link to it. Since that very first email, I've loved his writing. I've been wanting to write my own story and wondered if having this here would interfere with that, either by shaping the way I remember it, or by stopping me from putting it down at all. I think that I will still write my own version, though certainly in a different way, via flashbacks (if you'll pardon the expression) or other snippets which I'll try to piece together.

I know I need to write this story. I want to, but I'm not ready to sift through the details yet. It will come in time. I'm glad to have the space to get there.

4 comments:

c. said...

Just finished reading his blog, STE. Wow.

luna said...

I've read every part and it definitely took me back to my own dark time. I wonder if I would have been able to blog about it back then when I was glued to my journal. I'm so glad you both have found an outlet, and I hope the telling is cathartic. ~luna

G$ said...

Take your time with your story. It will flow when the time is right.

Your husband really is a wonderful writer (I suppose I should tell HIM that too). What gets me is thinking about how it was from my husband's point of view. I sent him the link. We met on the internet 10 years ago as well, but I doubt he will write it out. I do think though, that your husbands account will give him the comfort that another man is out there feeling like he does.

Antigone said...

I don't think I could really write mine. The only clear memory I have is of my water breaking and how soaked my jeans were. After that everything was a blur. Every now and then my husband mentions something from that night and I have absolutely no recollection of it. Rashomon indeed.