Three years ago today, I was on a plane to Hawaii.  I’ve written a little about that trip on this blog before here.  Yesterday, I was looking at pictures from the trip because I wanted to post a fun one on my friend Kim’s Facebook wall for his birthday.  What I wrote about the trip a few months ago was how the illness of my pet dog, Mandy, was a sad memory woven into that trip.  I will never think of that time without thinking of her.  But looking at the pictures I’d taken, I also remembered something very happy about the trip.

A couple weeks before going to Maui, I met a guy and started dating him.  His name was Eric and from our first date at Damon’s, there was something special about him, but also, something that felt like this relationship was going to be substantial.  It had been a long time since I’d had a boyfriend, probably a few years.  My life was full with friends and dogs and spending game show winnings, but truth be told, I was a little lonely.  But we met and, well, he made me laugh.

Our courtship was very new when I went to Maui and today, I thought about how electric our phone calls and texts and emails to each other were in those few days.  Michael and Kim would tease me when he’d call and I’d go outside so we could whisper sweet, yearning words to each other. And for some reason, I thought about the end of that classic John Hughes film, Some Kind of Wonderful, where after Eric Stoltz gives Mary Stuart Masterson the diamond earrings, he says, “You knew you were going to get these.”  And she says, “I didn’t know, I hoped.”  And then he tells her again that she knew and she admits, “I had a feeling.”  And then Lick the Tins (whatever happened to them?) start singing the best cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” that anyone of my generation has every heard.  

All this is to say that I didn’t know if Eric and I would become a couple, move in together, raise dogs, build a home. But I hoped.  I had a feeling.  A few weeks ago, we celebrated our three year anniversary, at Damon’s, of course.  And when I think about my trip to Maui, I feel like he was there with us, with me, because, in a way, he was.  And when I have a little vodka in my system, I’m apt to tell people that Mandy somehow sent Eric into my life because she knew how broken-hearted I’d be when she was gone.  It’s possible.

I titled this post One Hundred because it’s my 100th blog post.  It’s been a fun, challenging, emotional, humbling, ego-boosting, humbling again, educational six months, but I’m glad I started Easily Crestfallen and I’m thankful for people like you who’ve read, shared, commented, clicked “like”, etc.  I don’t know what the next 100 posts will look like, but I’m enjoying and learning from this journey.  

And I’m also thankful to Mandy, or Whoever it was, that sent Eric into my life. I couldn’t imagine the last three years without him and hopefully, we’ll have one hundred more together.