Love Stinks!

I’ve been happily married for almost 17 years to my best friend.

Until I met my husband, however, my love life was mostly comprised of angst, uncertainty, and disappointment. This was particularly true during my college days.

For as long as I could remember, I was either chasing boys who had no interest in me, or running away from boys who liked me. Unrequited love was my thing – whether I was on the giving or receiving end.

Then I met my first serious steady boyfriend in college. He was a definite improvement on the numskulls I usually fell for, but he went to a school a few hours away. Long distance romance can be hard enough as it is, but this was 1983: pre-cell phone and pre-internet, and thus pre-email. Long distance phone calls were expensive, so people actually wrote letters and sent them snail mail! We would right each other once or twice a week, call once in a while and visit each other when we could.

While I was single, I dreaded Valentine’s Day. I lived in an all girl’s dorm, and at about 10 am, the flowers and packages would start to arrive at the front desk.