Confessions of a Serial Swooper

My husband and I met when we worked together at an advertising agency in Boston.  The agency, probably as with most other agencies in the 90s, was chock full of young people enjoying the perks of working in, what was perceived to be, one of the city’s most glamorous professions.   Advertising and PR were profiting greatly off the booming budgets that came out of 90’s consumerism.   We enjoyed weekly staff meetings that included giveaways, themes, snacks and alcoholic beverages.  We enjoyed many a night out on the town with our coworkers — including our bosses — and laughed about late-night escapades over coffee in the conference room the next morning.  Life was good.  And THEN I fell in love.  And it got even better.

We snuck around.   For some reason, we were very concerned with not letting word of our relationship hit the rumor mill.  We confided in two friends (one, his roommate) and then enjoyed the game of it all.  The game of sending an email that said “Leaving in ten.  Meet me around the corner at the Cactus Club before the movie” so no one would see us departing together. The game of, after an overnight visit (gasp!  sorry, mom), one of us hopping off the T a stop before the other so we could saunter into work separately.   The game of standing next to each other in a bar during one of our company outings — acting like friends but knowing we were more than that.

Eventually, he took another job and we let our secret (nearly 3 months hidden) out.  Two years later we decided to live together.  Three years later we married.   And then these crazy boys came along.  Meant to be.

My husband.

My partner.

My lover.

My confidante.

My best friend.

My twelfth cousin six times-removed?

Um.   Maybe.

My husband’s middle name is Ross.  Before we married, my middle name was Ross (I dropped it).  My husband’s mother’s middle name was Ross.  My father’s middle name is Ross.  My husband’s grandfather’s middle name was Ross.  My grandfather’s middle name was Ross.   My cousin Emily?  Ross.  And so on, and so on.   On both sides.  Ummm….yeah.

Our wedding invitation read as follows:

Mr. & Mrs. Jeffrey Ross H.

cordially invite you to the marriage of their daughter

Miss Swooper Ross

to

Husband Ross S.

in Vermont

Seriously.  A stranger picking up that invitation would have certainly judged us as deep back woods Vermonters short on teeth and shorter on morality.  Kissing cousins in the truest sense of the words.

My Aunt Betsy did a truly amazing job recently of tracing my family tree back more than fourteen generations — all the way to my Great (10 times) Grandfather William Bradford who came over on The Mayflower.   My fingers are tightly crossed that no one on my husband’s side of the family is as industrious as Betsy.   Lord knows what familial connection we might find.

I choose to believe that the whole Ross thing just means we’re meant to be together.

And, I mean, our kids have all their limbs and no weird blood disorders.   So, that’s a plus.