Love
We met in an elevator. It was my first week working at Gentle Giant, a moving company in Boston. Marshall was manning the elevator, a job I later found out was totally beneath him given his experience and pay grade. I also later found out that he had assigned himself the button-pushing-duty because "the new girl working the first floor is kind of cute". Of course I knew none of this for nearly another year, the length of time it took him to finally ask me out. I suppose I could have done something about it too, but the thought of actually putting myself out there like that terrified me. What if he said no? What if he laughed? Or even worse, what if he said nothing? He was strong, funny, smart, handsome, outgoing (I could go on...), and he intimidated the hell out of me. I don't approach people like that. I sit quietly in the corner and try desperately to blend in with the wallpaper.
I worked with him here and there over the course of the following months. We chatted while we carried sofas and armoires, and I stumbled over my words when we drove in the trucks to and from jobs. I had one too many "I carried a watermelon?!"* moments. But somehow he looked beyond my awkward, dorky, oh-so-Megan self and still talked to me. We found out that not only were we both from Maine (the Mainiacs tend to find each other outside of Maine), but we grew up 15 minutes away from each other, had mutual friends growing up, and had many situations when we were in the same place at the same time. It just took us a couple decades and a few hundred miles to finally meet. He asked me over for dinner one night in February 2001 and we've been together ever since.
His apartment was a tiny little space in the basement of a larger house that was overflowing with fellow movers. I had to duck to get through the door that led to his part of the house. The top of the refrigerator came up to my chin and stashed at the top I noticed a small box of syringes. In the bathroom, tucked in the corner, I saw an old laundry detergent jug. My aunt had Type 1, and I knew exactly what these two things meant (seasoned T1Ds use laundry jugs as sharps containers). I didn't bring it up that first night, and neither did we discuss it the following times we got together. I didn't feel like it was my conversation to start. This clearly wasn't something he wanted to talk about, especially since I had no idea even when we worked together in such a physical job like moving. He kept it pretty well hidden. Regardless, it changed nothing. He was still the strong, funny, smart, handsome, outgoing man I was excited to spend time with and get to know more. I figured the opportunity for discussion would present itself soon, and I waited. In the meantime I began to fall in love.
We were in Maine a few weeks later, and I had invited him over to my house to meet my mom. We had left his mom's house in Poland and were on the way to my mom's a few miles away when he said he had forgotten something and had to turn around. He told me he had left his insulin behind and had to turn back. If you ask Marshall now when it was he told me about his diabetes, this is the moment he'll say. It was certainly a turning point in our relationship, because I knew just how important this was for him, and that it was something he didn't share with many people. I was honored.
When, how, and why a person with Type 1 reveals their condition to people around them is different for everyone and a very personal choice. Some wear it on their sleeve (or literally on their hip, as is the case with some and their insulin pumps), while others keep it private. For a plethora of reasons Marshall falls in the latter category. Or at least, he did. For many years he told very few people about his diabetes. Even some of his closest friends in college were unaware for longer than they should have been. I berate him for this now; he's lucky he made it through his high school and college years in one piece! But he had his reasons for keeping this very important thing private. I just know that Marshall is, and has always been, surrounded by people who love him and would do anything to help him. Sometimes the hardest and the best thing we can do is let people in. I'm so glad he did. And I'm lucky I did too.
*if you get the reference, then you feel my pain!
Top photo: Camping Mt.Marcy in NY, 2001.
Bottom photo: Hiking Lost Lake in Leadville, CO, 2017.
