About damn time

I (Ben) love time. We experience it, I hope, in a linear way. (If someone reading this experiences time in a non-linear way, keep that to yourself, forever.) Things happen, then they exist in the past, or we plot for things that we expect and wish can or will happen in the future. Time fixes us into context, like the contrast of this text against a dark or light background, depending on your device settings, or like the way someone's voice can pierce a din. Tamara and I existed independently for decades before we became sweethearts, and then another half-decade before an engagement (sorry it took so long, families). Time entangled us long before our souls locked into place together. We could have become smitten a decade ago in Trevor Lane's hospitality, or nine years ago on the Lanes' boat on the Fourth of July, or any of the points our paths crossed after those moments. I can't say why we were not agog in each other's company in those moments (too many high-test IPAs and whiskey on the boat is my excuse; I won't speak for Tamara on this matter). But we can say what happened Friday, March 26, 2021 set against the firelight in the Lane family's great room. "What's the worst thing that happened to you this week?" Tamara asked. The right side of her face aglow from the wood fire lit her grin. The question was innocent and charming and disarming. Against my history and hereditary tendencies, I answered honestly. As far as she and I cared, it was only the two of us in that room talking. A lot of times, I still feel that way. Tamara swears she made sure to sit next to me during dinner after that conversation. When I called her two days later to ask her on a date, her phone rang, rang, rang. Her voicemail was full, too, so I couldn't leave a message. Instead, true to my generation, I bumped her a text message to ask if she would have dinner with me. I also let her know her voicemail was either not set up or full. Tamara unleashed a salvo of questions typically reserved for a 20th date, not a first. "Do you want to get married? Do you want children? What's your biggest fear?" My answers came slowly and deliberately. Whatever I said was enough to secure a second date, and a third, a fourth, a fifth, and a few hundred more since then. I remain in awe that she keeps saying yes. It only took a few weeks before we were in love and ready to tell each other. Another seven months and we moved in together, Tamara moving into a house of dudes during a snowstorm. From there, all the ingredients of what our tie would become built upon itself layer by layer, like one of Tamara's buttery, soft, spicy cinnamon rolls. Like all couples, we created our own dialect and games. My favorites are naming something we love about each other based on its rank and asking if we love each other. Example: What's your 36th favorite thing about me? Do you love me enough to get up from the couch and make popcorn? Why did I take so long to propose? I wanted to feel worthy of the right to ask, and know that when I did we had seen ample iterations of each other to know that saying yes meant agreeing to each one of those iterations. When we were hungry, overstimulated, understimulated, joyless, zooming, ambitious, listless, and more. When I asked her to marry me on our fourth anniversary of our first date, I did so at the park where we met to walk to the restaurant on Everett's waterfront. I asked her with the ring her late father asked her mother to marry him, in the town where time conspired to entwine us. "Do you love me enough to marry me?" We are delighted to acknowledge that you have shaped us as individuals and as a couple and celebrate you for preparing us to love ourselves and each other as we commit to being husband and wife, for as long as time allows.