Song Of The Day 9/16/2013: Tom Petty - "A Face In the Crowd"

My wife Kate and I were at a wedding reception last weekend and found ourselves in conversation with a total stranger. The wedding itself was a commemoration and celebration that went off perfectly and lasted well into the night. (Full disclosure: I officiated the ceremony. I also DJ'ed. Product placement complete.) Anyway, by about 10pm we were all good and, let's just say, liberated from our boundaries of personal expression, and I found myself trying to talk to this total stranger about what I had never really told anyone else. I talked about the love story I've experienced with my wife, how unusual, unpredictable and just plain weird it was, and how I, personally speaking, managed to fall in love with my wife in a backwards sort of way. There was no bolt from the blue when we first got together. Our chances might have been perceived as slim.

The thing that we talked about with this total stranger was the fact that neither of us can recall the moment we first met. There was no dramatic tell-all moment where we looked at each other from across a crowded room and fell hopelessly into the chasm of eternal love. It just happened. It unfolded. We were placed at a certain time with our particular feelings, we navigated through them, even tried to defy them at some point, but as it turns out those feelings were pretty much set in stone and there wasn't any way we could rationalize ourselves out of them. Our love just slipped in there.

At times it remains a mystery. At times we both still wonder how the hell this happened. Or at least I do. But it's been ten years now, six as husband and wife, and personally I'm kind of happy about the mysteries between us that are yet unsolved. Should be fun to uncover them, and we got all the time in the world.

Happy anniversary, Kate. Thanks for everything.