Sometimes, things just work out.

Seven years ago today, at about this time of the afternoon, I married the woman of my dreams. Kim and I met, of all places, in a Chevy dealership while I was doing my best to become the world’s worst car salesman. We dated for a little over two months before I proposed. I didn’t plan it out, didn’t have a ring (or the money to buy a ring), and no inclination other than this was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

We were married in Portland, Maine on a day sort of like this one – an 80-degree October day that seems to be all the proof a rational person would need to prove climate change. After telling our guests that it was only a short walk from the church to the reception, we realized that most everyone who followed our seemingly solid advice would be showing up sweating like Willie Nelson at a tax audit. Of course, one bit of planning had saved them an even warmer walk – we’d started the wedding at 5 pm, which was due to the Patriots-Dolphins game at 1 pm. Once I’d sprung that on Kim and she’d dealt with it in stride, I figured it was definitely meant to be. After all, it’s one thing to propose to a woman at 10 pm with no ring and in such an abrupt way that she has to ask a half dozen times whether it’s a joke – it’s quite another to ask a woman to schedule the day she’s been dreaming about since the age of 5 for a midseason football game.

Through it all, she’s put up with various forms of idiocy on my part and managed to stifle the urge to smother me in my sleep after some particularly lively discussions. What I appreciate most about Kim is the little things – her laugh, her smile, her sense of humor, and that she had the huevos to play guitar for me after our first date.

Sometimes, things just work out. And sometimes, they work out better than you could’ve ever imagined. Thank you for saying yes Kim, you’re everything I wanted and more importantly, everything I needed too. I love you deliriously.