text: [Themes: love & dating, romance]
  
  Dear Natalie,
  
  First of all, happy anniversary of the day we first met, my love, my sweet darling.
  
  Twenty-two years is a long time to be together, to be so closely emotionally connected. And you mean everything to me. I know sometimes it's hard for us to say it to each other. Long days of work, children, and just--it's just hard in the moment to pause for a second, look at each other, and say it. But I love you. I love you.
  
  I love you when you are asleep, and I love when I just look at you at breakfast. I love you when I'm at work, and I love you when you get into bed, tired from the day, letting dreams lull you, your hair settling on the pillow.
  
  So I was thinking a lot about what to get you for a present this year, to celebrate.
  
  I made this for you. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me. I'm right here with you, as you play, loving you. I'll click this first link for you if you want (I know you aren't used to these things!)
  
  [Author's Note: I think putting this on "publish" makes it so only we can see this. It's just for us, sweetie. I made it to celebrate our anniversary and remember some special intimate moments together over the years in an interesting way as a present for you. I hope you love it, Natalie, as much as I love you! (Of course if there's any admin looking at this, or if I messed up, don't read this, because it's got private things in it.)]
  
  > It's Very Easy, Your Love
  I know you don't really play "computer games" (as you call them!) but this isn't like when I suggested you play Doom back in our freshman year, and you got really frustrated and kept shooting when you didn't want to and walking into walls, and you claimed the "game was impossible and nobody could control a keyboard and mouse at the same time." That was a debacle. But this is just just a choose your own adventure--remember them? Trust me, this is easy.
  
  See, click your choice below, just like I did for you on the previous page. Go on, click your choice (and there's only one to choose from here! Later pages might have more though!)
  
  > In the Cafeteria
  So, I thought it would be fun to sort of relive or replay how we met, to remember some special thoughts, and think about what was magical about it. So we can remember all those fun things we did a long time ago.
  
  So let's remember together! It was September, the very beginning of college, just before classes were about to begin.
  
  I was sitting in the cafeteria, the big one, the Flynn Cafeteria. Try to imagine it. I was sitting in the back, by the window, where I was feeling a little lonely. I didn't like my roommate, I found college overwhelming so far, and I was sitting with my tray by myself.
  
  I think I was eating corn chowder.
  
  And I'm reading a thick book. It might have been Boswell's Life of Johnson, which I'd been in the middle of when college started, and I brought it just for moments like this. I know, I know. It was super nerdy. You walked in, got your food, and approached. I remember were were wearing a loose purple linen shift and jeans. And black boots. Your legs looked really good.
  
  What do you remember from that moment? Do you remember it at all?
  
  > Of course you remember!
  You looked at me, noticing me, when hundreds of people had walked past me that day. I wasn't expecting to make friends, let alone meet the girl who would become the love of my life. We were both so young, both eighteen, with infinite time to find each other.
  
  Remember what you did?
  
  > Approached you, making right for you, a smile on your face.
  Yes, you remember!
  
  It was so unlikely that you would have been there. You, of all people. Fate was impatient, and thrust us together as early as possible, I think. We must have recognized each other, my Natalie. It's funny to picture younger you--before I could rest my hand on your lower back and sweep you into a kiss, my other hand behind your head, fingers in your hair, lips on your neck.
  
  Like I am doing now.
  
  Because we were just strangers to each other. You walked up to the table where I was sitting. Then what did you do, my love?
  
  > Sat down with you.
  I looked up and saw you, and then I looked back at my book. It would have been very easy for you to walk past, to say nothing, to ignore me entirely. In fact, it was the obvious thing to do. It was right at the start of school, your hair was long and rippled with chestnut curls, and your next four years stretched out before you with possibility. But you saw me, and you decided that this was a moment to act, to approach, to find me.
  
  And then, what did you do?
  
  > Met your eyes and said hello.
  Yes. You sat down and stayed there, and said hello. Who does that? Only at certain moments, in certain contexts, and certain fragile moods and confluences of life can someone sit down with a stranger and talk to them, to actively seek out friendship, to make a connection.
  
  Try doing that on the subway, or at work, or at a movie theater, or a park bench. You will be rebuffed at best, receive a restraining order at worst.
  
  And why would such an attractive girl come sit down with me, and stay there? It was fall, and I can't get that shirt and jeans out of my mind, and the shape of your body was visible and distracting.
  
  I'm sure you remember how I looked up, trying to assume some semblance of cool.
  
  I've told you about what experience I'd had to that point. Not much.
  
  > That wasn't obvious, though. You seemed like a nice-looking guy.
  I'm glad to hear it. I thought it was painfully obvious back then. I had no smooth talk, no "moves" (what was a "move" even?) and no idea how to improve my look or my lack of poise. At least, that's how I thought of it. I'm always my harshest critic, though.
  
  > Small Talk
  I'm sure I said something like "Hey" or "Are you going to the thing tonight?" Something like that. It sounded good in my head, and...acceptable out loud. But I wished I had said something better.
  
  But I do remember what you said back to me, the sentence that made me fall in love with you. I'm sure you remember too.
  
  > say "Hey, I know you. You live in my dorm, on the top floor."
  Exactly, yes. And I smiled at you, and you reached out to see what book I was reading at the same moment I reached out to pull it back, a little embarrassed. Our hands almost touched.
  
  I remembered noting how small you were. Just delicate all around. It's a cliche of fiction to say some woman is delicate, and it is an annoying word, and I detest these trite novel writers devoting time to talking about a woman's delicate spray of freckles across her nose (puke) or her delicate and narrow dancer-like arms (double puke), or her slender and delicate wrists (etc.)
  
  You were not fragile, far from it, but you were small, and quick and almost feline in eye and affect. I swear, I could have circumnavigated your waist-equator with both my hands, or very nearly, just like the real Magellan.
  
  Now, of course, we have both suffered from the thickening indignities of middle age, and your chestnut hair is shot through with icicles. More than shot through. And I see you have thrown out all of your college clothes. I would have thought you'd keep some for memory's sake. They wouldn't fit now, I suppose. It would be pleasant if you could dress up that way again. But I suppose it would be absurd. But you might try that tightly woven side braid you favored.
  
  I hope this all comes back to you. You are remembering well, and I love you. Later on, in the days to come, we grew closer. There was one conversation we had--where was it? I want to say in a pizza place? Getting coffee?--where we realized something deep about us. I'm sure you remember what it was, that epiphany we had.
  
  > Talked about the idea of someday having a family together.
  Yes, we did talk about that, didn't we? But I don't remember if we talked about it as a real thing to be considered, or just as a general notion. Because I remember--we used to take those little trips, those overnight vacations together, in college, you and I, between the end of classes and our final exams.
  
  As if we were escaping reality, we hopped on the commuter rail or a bus (neither of us with a car as yet!) and found a cute hotel or bed and breakfast, or once, a ski resort, or a dormmate's parents' unused summer cottage.
  
  At hotels, we check in furtively, wondering if we ought to give false names, as if it were the 1950s. The desk clerk didn't care.
  
  But then! To have a room to ourselves, playing house, with our own temporarily-ours bathroom, and fridge, and bed--as if we did not often share a bed in our dorm. But this was a queen-sized bed, and in the dorm, it was a twin, with a mattress the thickness and texture of a piece of sandpaper.
  
  This room was ours, sensually ours, a love nest.
  
  > Were sitting eating pizza.
  Yes! Yes! You remember what I'm about to say! We were on one of these excursions, sophomore year? We were so in love, and sitting in that pizza place. Benito's? Molto Bene's? I don't remember the name, though I should.
  
  Somehow, and I suspect, because you ensure it would be so, the conversation turned to children. This was not idle talk, but real questions.
  
  "I can't imagine ever having children," I recall saying. "No intent. I think of diapers and vomit, and ointment, and horrible school plays and having to watch you swell up in pregnancy, and children's teeth falling out everywhere, and falling from playground structures leading to ER visits overnight without a pillow or good coffee. I think of having to smile with mock euphoria at their pride in achieving some cheap trinket at miserable Chuck-E-Cheese, and my face is sore just thinking of holding that dead rictus of a smile. We ought to just be together, you and I. I don't need anything but you." And I took your hand.
  
  You had asked me if I ever thought about wanting children.
  
  I felt I had answered the question wholly. And then, you looked down for a moment. I assume you recall what you said.
  
  > say "But I want six kids,"
  What was there to say to that, your eyes so trusting, your kittenish arms so slender, so delicate. Your petite hips, as yet unsullied by the indignities of childbirth?
  
  It was a crossroads. A moment much like the dilemmas I suppose I am presenting to you in this amusing diversion of a quiz, as I stand here over you, admiring you as you play. There was no equivocating, no third choice. No looking away from this sudden stark choice before me.
  
  I could have you, sweet Natalie, with whom I was in love, sitting across from me, knee touching mine, gently, lips curling in a soft smile, sure that I was joking about not wanting children, poised to laugh in relief and worship at my wit and we would live happily ever after, tra la, the eight of us. We would be matriarch and patriarch, maw and paw, and our six fat children to-be, already somehow imagined by me with mucus running down each and every one of their noses, and/or bleeding from skinned knees..
  
  Or I could slip away, insanely parting fro you at once, from the girl I loved, for no reason other than that an imagined future might prove nauseating. It would be as mad as if we parted because I liked Worcestershire sauce on my steak and you eschewed meat altogether. Strange, unaccountable, suggestive of a certain difference between us, but to part over it?
  
  You recall, naturally, my response.
  
  > remember that you said you would have children with you, gladly.
  Did I say that explicitly? I remember that I forced my smile, willing it to turn upwards. I wanted to be agreeable, to effortlessly be the man you wanted me to be--but more, I wanted to see that I was making an effort to be that way.
  
  To agree kindly, even as you saw that I did not agree, and that, in my heart's heart, I felt unkind.
  
  That I would agree to the life you imagined, making the supreme sacrifice--my life, my youth, my happiness--just to obey the hormonal juices making your mouth say what you deeply desired.
  
  Yes, of course, my sweet Natalie. And I promised myself that anything I said out of love or duty or momentary weakness of misplaced post-coital bliss could ever, ever overwrite this firm moment of certainty that this was not what I wanted. That any future lies or claims of happiness were hereby declared null and void well in advance.
  
  These words all ran through my mind, bitter and ice-cold, like black tea left with the teabag soaking in it overnight on the windowsill.
  
  But did I come around, in the end, as you promised I would? That when I met my children, I would fall in love with that, and look back and see that I had been wrong?
  
  > Yes, you did. You came to love them.
  Actually, it's true, and it's also true what they say: happy wife, happy life.
  
  And I am so happy. I was actually pretty stupid back then. So I admit it. I was wrong and you were right, and when I wipe their cute mouths of applesauce and they sneeze directly into my eyes, I still love them.
  
  Because love doesn't work by logic, it works with a strange sense of its own, and time makes that happen, just like you said it would, and one of us had to yield, and I couldn't let you go, not when finding you in a maze of choices is so hard, and there are so many paths that lead to anger and sadness and violence and insanity, I just want to hold on to you, and I don't care about anything else. I love you in your sweat pants. I love you with your white-flecked hair. I love you with your aging features. I love you. You. Everything from you in good, and that means them as well.
  
  And I'm happy, really happy.
  
  Really.
  
  Happy anniversary. I love you, Natalie.