This weekend marks the 20th anniversary for Mrs, ZM and I, 20 years of ups and downs, cancer scares, actual cancer, a kid, several dogs, a few cats, a fish, and a large number of dead plants. We met at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival when she was working a stage act and I had just gotten settled in Saint Paul, it all started with a Pepsi. We had to speed up our engagement after 9/11 as I was still active with the HRT and was waiting to hear that I was needed back down south for anti-terror, as one of the few fully-trained medics available I was curious if they might need me, but fortunately, I wasn’t needed and stayed put in the great white north. That was the first hurdle of our married lives and like many young people I hoped that would be the worst thing to happen, there would be other situations that would arise and we made it through them all.

2016 was a major hurdle and it affected our family in massive ways, ways I have illustrated here and elsewhere, suficive to say nothing was ever the same. My depression started getting worse, my sadness got worse and worse, and I got very destructive. Then 2020 and the covid 19 virus hit the world, everyone was forced to work remotely except of course EMS workers and other “essential” workers, as a note EMS and Fire are not considered “essential” by the State of Minnesota but I digress. Now I was not only spiraling downward out of control but also now forced to work 12 hour days, which hastened my impending collapse I’m sure. I was reflecting today that I am very surprised I didn’t start drinking alcohol, I know that is not a helpful thing to do, but boy would it have been nice to just get drunk once in a while and forget my troubles for a time. But I am made of sterner stuff than that and crawled through the shitty darkness I was in, all the while making myself believe I was just fine and that the reason I wasn’t feeling anything was because of my meds, I equated not feeling anything with not having the highs and lows I had been having and felt this is what it was supposed to feel like and I must be just fine. What I didn’t know and Mrs. ZM did was I was a runaway ship headed toward some major rocks and the lighthouse wasn’t working.

Well we all know what happened next, if you have been reading my blog the last few days.

But all that being said, for our 20th wedding anniversary, we opted to spend the weekend in Stillwater Mn ad the Water Street Inn on the shores of the St. Croix River near the famous lift bridge. Our room is pretty cool, it has a huge tub a gas fireplace, a 4 poster bed, a little patio, and a lovely table to sit at if we want to eat a meal in our room. Today we went out and about the town of Stillwater, we made candles, which I was feeling a little meh about going into it, but it was actually rather fun and it was a chance for Mrs. ZM and I to do something together. We ate lunch at a very nice place called the Patriot, a good burger, fries were tasty, Mrs. ZM had steak bites and something else that I honestly forgot. afterward, we went antiquing in Stillwater, didn’t see much that enthused me other than the bayonet for an old rifle I have, but I don’t need one, I am not going to be going against the Huns in France and Belgium anytime soon so no need for a big knife attached to a rifle. ran into an old friend of mine and one of Mrs. ZM’s cousins, now we are back at the hotel Mrs. ZM is napping a bit and I am doing some things, like writing in this blog.