This post was supposed to hit Monday and somehow the week is already half over and here I am. Somehow I’ve caught a cold, even though I literally don’t leave my neighborhood, and if I do I am in a mask. But I feel like I always get a cold when the weather turns. I am looking forward to some sort of “normal”-ish Halloween festivities this weekend, and dreading the lack of family come Thanksgiving. The day job is keeping me busy, which is good, because if I had any spare time, the election anxiety would over-take me. It’s bubbling there, just beneath the surface, and the images of people waiting in MASSIVE lines to vote, give me both dread (hello voter suppression) and hope (hello massive turnout).
I could really use a win. We could really use a win. America could really use a win. Equality could really use a win. Black people could really use a win. Marginalized communities and the poor could really use a win. Love and hope could really use a win.
As always, trying to focus on the love and the hope we still have.
We met in a grocery store in April 2014, but as co-workers, not as shoppers! I had just moved home to Bucks County, PA, after an internship in DC, and I started a part-time cashier job at my local Giant to keep paying off my student loans. Mike had been working for Giant for 11 years, and had recently been transferred to the same store, as an assistant manager in Produce. He would walk by the front of the store and make a point to smile at me and say hello, and I thought he was so cute! We happened to have a lunch break at the same time one day, and finally broke the ice. After that, Mike would come through my register line on his lunch or at the end of his shift to say hi and ask how my day was going. One day, he asked if we could exchange numbers, and our first date was not long after!
Mike pulled off the life-changing surprise last fall when we were vacationing in Savannah, GA. On our last full day in town, we were walking through Forsyth Park after breakfast to spend time on the riverfront. I thought Mike had been a little quieter than usual over coffee, but I chalked it up to him still waking up. I remember being so focused on taking some photos of the mossy oak trees along the path that when I heard Mike say, “Why don’t we stop over here for a minute?”, I didn’t give him my full attention right away. As I looked over at him and started to put my phone away, he said, “There’s something that I want to ask you…” and started to get down on one knee. I jammed my phone in my bag as fast as I could to take it all in; it was so exciting! Someone who had been jogging past us as Mike was proposing came back around and, seeing that I said yes, kindly offered to take our photo as we soaked up the moment. Mike told me that he had the ring box in his pocket the entire morning (and tucked away for our entire trip!) and joked how relieved he was that I never picked up on it.
