Life Has a Funny Way of Happening

When I was younger, and in my first marriage, I wanted a dive bar on the beach in the Caribbean. Such a thing had been romanticized in movies & T.V. throughout my childhood.

I proposed to my (now) wife on Halloween in ‘19. We had started looking for our forever home earlier that year, mainly in the Northern California redwoods. It had to be in the forest and there could not be even the hint of snow; she hated snow.

When we were planning our wedding last year, to take place just this past October 11th, we picked Curaçao for our honeymoon. Our first trip to the Caribbean was to Turks & Caicos in ‘16. It was during that trip that I said to her “It’s a great place to visit, but I don’t think I ever want to move to the Caribbean. I really just don’t like the constant heat and humidity.”

A few months into the planning, we realized we were in a place financially that would allow her to quit her job and realize one of her dreams: to be a domesticated housewife.

She picked the date of her “retirement” for this past May. But, that meant we would need to be married sooner so that she could be put onto my benefit plans at work. So we went before the local magistrate last October, to keep the same anniversary date, just for our own shits and giggles. We had already booked and paid for the honeymoon, though, so we had to wait a year for that.

We just returned from said honeymoon. Amazing memories, great adventures, and an enjoyment of shuffleboard were had that will last a lifetime (it took me five days to leave the island with a record of 5-5-1 against my wife, who it turns out is a born fucking natural at shuffleboard ~ a tie was the best I could muster by the last evening there).

And two days before we were to leave, we both were homesick, missing our fur family at home. We both decided that another trip to the Caribbean anytime in the next decade or two would be too soon. For my wife, the travel to and from, and the ten days away from our feline housemates, was enough of a pain to even make her reconsider her desire to visit Europe.

We just couldn’t wait to be back at our forever home in the forested paradise (another of her dreams realized) that we bought in ‘21, in Upstate New York, joyously waiting for the winter snow.