Five Best Days (So Far)

I recently celebrated my birthday, which prompted reflection and a conversation with my hubby about my top five best days (so far). So, in chronological order, here are my top five best days.

First up, the day my husband proposed, or should I say the early morning my husband proposed. It was New Year’s 1995. We were visiting friends in Maine, if you can believe that. It was bitterly cold as one would expect of Maine in the dead of winter. We were at our friends’ home for a New Year’s Eve party, and after an evening of imbibing, everyone was dancing and generally partying like it was 1999, only it was 1995. After having danced with the mother of our friend, my boyfriend paired up with me for another dance.

As we danced, he said Jamie's mother told him we should get married. I laughed. We had already both been married and divorced and he once said he would never get married again. Then he followed up that comment with, “So what do you think, wanna get married?” I know, not the most romantic proposal, but I thought he was joking. So, my response, a heartfelt, "Excuse me?"

When he made it clear that it wasn't a joke, I said yes. The evening ended with me stepping out the front door only to step onto a patch of ice and landing on my butt. It took my brand new fiancé a few moments to realize that I'd even fallen. My hero. This May we'll celebrate our 20th anniversary. And they said it wouldn't last.

The day I graduated from law school also makes the list. After seven long years of school (undergrad and law school), it was a momentous occasion. I entered the workforce right out of high school and didn’t attend college until I was 30, graduating from law school at 37. I was the first member of my family to earn a college degree, much less a professional degree. It was a proud day for me, my husband, and my family.

Six months later, the day I learned I’d passed the bar exam was even bigger than the day I graduated from law school. The state bar gives you a date when the scores will be out, so you can go online and check. That morning my husband had to go out of town, but he hung around an hour to see if the scores had come in. Finally, he couldn’t wait any longer. He had to get on the road or he’d be late for his first appointment. Not 10 minutes after he left, I checked again, and sure enough the scores were up.

The scores are just a list of bar numbers, with a column for each test, and a column that indicated whether you are eligible to be sworn in. The person above me failed, and the person below me failed. I finally had to get a ruler so that I knew I was lining my scores up. I practically fainted when I read it. I called my husband and he was so disappointed that he wasn’t there to share it with me. About 45 minutes later, the doorbell rang. He’d sent the biggest bouquet of flowers I think I’d ever seen.

Rounding out my five best days so far, was the day I got “the call,” or in my case, the email every unpublished writer longs to receive. A publisher wanted my book.

On the morning of September 20, 2011 (yes, I have the date memorized), I got “The Email.” When I saw the subject line (the book title), and who the email was from, I sat there, staring at my computer screen, afraid to open the email. Did I really want to start my day with a rejection? I sucked it up, and opened it.

I was shocked to read the line, “Great news! I enjoyed The Promise of Change so much, we’d like to publish it.” I read it again, just to be sure. Then I jumped from my chair and danced around my office, before racing out to tell my secretary. She wasn’t at her desk. I’d forgotten she had a dentist appointment that morning. Then I raced into my colleague’s office. Empty.

I picked up the phone and called my husband. It went to his voice mail. Next, I called my sister, got her voice mail. Finally, I called my dear friend and beta reader (the one who was responsible for getting me to actually writing the book to begin with). Voice Mail.

Argh! Here I get this exciting news and I'm dancing around the office (maybe it's good I didn't have witnesses), and I had no one to tell. Not a single soul who had been on the journey with me. So, I did what any sane person who’d just learned her baby was going to be published would do, I danced around my office some more. Needless to say, nothing got done on my day job that day. I rode that high all week!

Hopefully, there are more “best days” to come.

What are some of your best days?