which anniversary is this? better ask Pretty

fun with friends at DeBordieu, 2007

So Pretty and I are having dinner with our friends Nekki and Francie after the South Carolina women’s basketball game last night, and the conversation turned to our anniversary which is this Saturday, February 9th. I had invited them to go to dinner with us on our anniversary but that wasn’t working out so we opted to eat after the game.

Nekki asked what everyone always asks about anniversaries – how many years are you celebrating?

Nineteen, I answered quickly because I am the numbers person in our family who keeps up with birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations, etc. Every family has a designated scorekeeper, and in our family I am known as the go-to person for important dates. Pretty is generally unreliable in these areas.

Oh, Nekki said, nineteen years is really great. Pretty and I both nodded, although I noticed Pretty displayed a hint of eyes rolling at my answer. Then she said, no, it’s not nineteen, it’s eighteen to which I responded no I specifically remember the year was 2001 when we got together so anyone could plainly see our anniversary was definitely for nineteen years. Case closed, I added for emphasis.

For those of you who can do “high math,” I will let you do the numbers or you don’t really need to bother because February 09, 2019 is our 18th. anniversary, and don’t you forget it. Please enjoy a few highlights of the past “on the road to nineteen” with us.

family civil rights tour – Alabama, 2018

SC women’s national championship, Dallas – 2017

Number One Son Drew’s rehearsal dinner – 2015

South Carolina Pride – 2016

signing copies of Committed to Home at Francis Marion – 2018

the hideout, Wyoming, 2009

in the beginning, Cancun, February 09, 2001

family vacation – Gettysburg, 2012

Valentine’s Day Poinsett Bridge with family – 2015

Texas, 2013

Happy Anniversary, Pretty – how do I love thee? I can’t begin to count the ways…or the years evidently…but my love will always belong to you. Thank you for every day. Case closed.

Stay tuned.

Published by Sheila Morris

Sheila Morris is a personal historian, essayist with humorist tendencies, lesbian activist, truth seeker and speaker in the tradition of other female Texas storytellers including her paternal grandmother. In December, 2017, the University of South Carolina Press published her collection of first-person accounts of a few of the people primarily responsible for the development of LGBTQ+ organizations in South Carolina. Southern Perspectives on the Queer Movement: Committed to Home will resonate with everyone interested in LGBTQ+ history in the South during the tumultuous times from the AIDS pandemic to marriage equality. She has published five nonfiction books including two memoirs, an essay compilation and two collections of her favorite blogs from I'll Call It Like I See It. Her first book, Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing received a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Her writings have been included in various anthologies including Out Loud: the best of Rainbow Radio, Saints and Sinners New Fiction from the 2017 Festival, Mothers and Other Creatures; Cowboys, Cops, Killers, and Ghosts (Texas Folklore Society LXIX). She is a displaced Texan living in South Carolina with her wife Teresa Williams and their dogs Spike, Charly and Carl. She is also Naynay to her two granddaughters Ella and Molly James who light up her life for real. Born in rural Grimes County, Texas in 1946 her Texas roots still run wide and deep. View more posts