The Dude Can Dance

The Staff of Make it Missoula asked our Bloggers to chime-in for Valentine’s Day. We hope you’ll find of each of them inspiring in their own unique way. Be sure to check out our Valentine’s Day Contest. In 25 words or less, tell us of your most memorable Missoula Valentine and you’ll be entered into a chance to win a $100 gift certificate to The Red Bird Restaurant.

By ELKE GOVERTSEN
After the sting from my first real heartbreak had subsided, I decided that my next fling would be simple. If he could dance, that would do. I wanted no complications, obligations, or real deep love. Love kind of sucked and life certainly seemed easier without it.

And like all great trajectories, I was way off course.

The dude could dance, that was for sure. The kicker was he was dressed up in a skirt dancing with a tiny little girl with cancer.

She was beaming in her tutu. He was grinning right back at her in his calico skirt. It was dance night and he was doing his camp counselor finest. I was a goner.

A totally ridiculous romance ensued, a long distance honeymoon period that lasted two years. This was definitely not the start of a life; it was an extended period of unreality. We both carried out our real lives, interrupted only by adventure and vacations together. Clearly this was not meant to last, right?

But we are still here, twelve years, two kids, and a couple of houses later. We co-own things like property and vacuum cleaners and water heaters.  And life insurance policies.

How, you might ask did we bridge from awesome college nookie runs to having such a grown up life? I could answer you this: we grew up. Together. But that isn’t quite the whole story.

I could tell you how he slept in the windowsill of my hospital room while I teetered on the edge of life and death. I could tell you about how he held our first son to his bare chest to warm him. I could even tell you about how we forged a marriage and a couple of businesses out of the circumstances beyond our control, making, if you will, a lemonade empire out of the lemons in our way.

But really how we got from there to here is quite simple: we didn’t. We are still there in more ways than we aren’t. We still make each other laugh. He still chases me up the stairs. He grabs my ass in public. I flirt shamelessly with him. We still have no idea exactly how to package this life as an adult one.  We still function quite independently in terms of our ideas.  We still are figuring out who is supposed to do the laundry, so we don’t.

There are some distinctions, namely the children we somehow made (now how did that happen?) that seem to be everywhere we go. And now, when we collapse into bed, it is for much needed sleep.  But really, the road was complicated, and frankly, we only traveled a short distance together.

But when we dance, it all starts over and the beginning begins again.

Back to Mama About Town homepage.

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Bio: Elke Govertsen is the publisher of Mamalode which is a magazine and website for area moms. When not juggling her family, business, and the laundry (disclosure – there is no laundry being done whatsoever) Elke tries to eek out time to write, do yoga, and read like a fiend.