I asked Rob if he had any old pictures of us on his hard drive this morning, because though I wanted to do a Valentine’s post, I figured I’d have to punch myself in the face if I used our wedding pictures to illustrate.

Thinking he’d send a shot of, oh I don’t know, us, I was at first confused by the images he chose.

These are from a one night trip to Kiawah, back when Rob was a furniture deliverer and I was a waitress and student and our apartment had 450 square feet but felt like a fucking palace. We loaded a truck with furniture, drove it to South Carolina, spent the night, and sped back up 95 within 24 hours so I could make my next shift.

I remember I cried on the way down because we were stuck behind a truck full of chickens and it was so sad and smelly. And then I remember the grim, silent half hour on the way back when we got stuck behind an empty chicken truck and oh my god the circle of life etc.

I remember that it was too cold to swim when we woke up, and that the tide reached the dunes which we had never seen before. I remember the WATCH OUT FOR ALLIGATORS! signs posted all over, and laughing about it but also watching our backs.

I remember talking on the long drives about what we each wanted, because at the time the only thing we had that was important was each other.

It’s been years since that trip. Since then we’ve broken up, gotten back together, started our careers, had a wedding, bought a house, swum in the Adriatic, peed behind a car in Paris on New Years, had screaming matches and Downton Abbey marathons, and adopted way too many cats. We’ve done so many more interesting things than drive to South Carolina but what we’ve taken away from each trip/milestone/experience have been the small, boring things. Our shared vault isn’t filled with us smiling into the camera at a party— it’s filled with playing a used recorder at a rest stop and pretending to be scared of a toy alligator because the real ones were out there.

Either Rob was too lazy to dig deeper into his archives to find a shot of us together, or he knew what I really meant to ask was to send old pictures that told a story of us. And though this one isn’t poignant or interesting, he sent the exact right one.

Anyway, I love you Crab.