Coloring the last chapter in the book

Hubby and I were in San Antonio last week to celebrate Poppy’s Day. This was the Hub's first trip to Texas and for years I'd been looking forward to the day I would finally be able to present him the people and places that are part of my family and my history.

You see, Hubby and I, we've known each other for quite some time now (is it really going to be eight years!?), and over time, little by little, we’ve reached a point were there are very few things left about the other's life before we met that we don’t already know about.

I remember the first time I took Hubby to Mexico. It was really exciting to finally introduce him to my family after he’d been hearing about them for so long, and vice versa (introduce him to them). I loved showing him my high school and college grounds and adjoining hangout spots and telling him all the stories of my time spent there. I remember how exciting it was introducing him to my very best and closet friends and all of us boring him to no end with story after story of my life before he met me. Showing him the different neighborhoods I’d lived in, the houses I grew up in, my favorite food stands, markets, restaurants.... everything about that trip was a first for him and through his eyes things that had been part of my everyday life years before suddenly became a first for me all over again.

We repeated the experience a few months later when we traveled to Mérida, Valladolid, Tulum, Mexico City, Palenque.... people I grew up with, family I’d known all my life, places I’d lived in or visited .. all was shown for the first time and it felt like we were finally filling in with colors images that up until then had only been outlined in simple black lines.

Of course, with each trip back home we take together, fewer and fewer people and places are left to be “colored in” and I’m guessing that by now, the next time we’re in Mexico anything new that he will see, will turn out to be new for me too, because it probably will be (new)!

So Texas was the last chapter of the “Fned’s life before meeting Hubby” book that is my life and which Hubby had yet to read.

Sure he’d met most of my closest American relatives at our wedding, (though certainly not all of them since not all were able to travel to France) but even so, it didn’t feel like he’d gotten to really know that part of my life. I couldn’t explain to him the wonderfully homey flavor of “just out of the microwave Poppy’s nachos” or why is it that the “keep Austin weird” catch phrase makes me grin, or how come “let’s watch a movie” is the best way to end a day. No matter how many times I’ve described it, understandably he couldn’t accurately grasp why Poppy’s Day is so special for us, both as children and as adults. Or how it can be that my folks, though scattered all across the country (and even abroad), still manage to remain a tight knit and fun loving family that laughs together over crummy water pipes and silly R-rated movies. How we remain close and feel comfortable with each other even when we haven’t seen each other in years (for some of us).

Like in those previous experiences in Mexico, I’d been craving for Hubby to meet the special people in my life whom he’d seen me address post cards to countless times on our different trips; to take him to my childhood’s official landmarks (the Alamo, the Riverwalk, UT...) and not so official landmarks (my grandparent’s trusted bagel and tamale shops, the Pizza Hut I used to work at, the mall were I bought that sweater he loves so much...). Have him taste the dishes that made my mouth water each summer / winter vacation growing up: BBQ, grilled steak, the afore mentioned Poppy’s nachos, bagels and tamales, pecan pie, direct-from-Houston-home-made-chocolate treats, home-made pickles, Dr Pepper and Root Beer sodas (although granted, these he didn’t like much) and so much more.

More than anything, I wanted him to feel what it felt like to be part of my family, to listen to my grandparents tell the funny stories of “the girls” growing up, hear the parents tell the quirky tales of us cousins, smile at the aunts and uncles while they brag (in a good way) about their kids and grand-kids doing well and making their way in life.

One week was certainly not enough, there was so much I still wanted to show him, people I wanted to spend more time with, things I wanted to do.


But that’s ok. We haven’t put away our crayons yet... the coloring will continue on our next trip.

Photo: Cowboy Boots - Hubby

Fned.