A strange story, how Esposo and I ran into each other, and it all began with Lake Michigan's left bank.
Before we ever met, the stage was set when we were children.
Esposo is from a neighboring state, but his uncle also happened to marry a Milwaukee girl and the pair moved to Port Washington--a small city half an hour up the lakeshore from the big city. When Esposo was a child, his parents would bring him on family vacations from Iowa to play on the beaches adjacent to Port Washington.
My father has roots in Port Washington, and I was also taken on weekend trips to play on these beaches.
Esposo and I have pictures, playing as children with our respective families, on the exact same beaches--him a few years older than me and trailing his dad as they tight-roped the places where wave meets sand, me a 4 year old in a green and yellow swimsuit building a sand castle.
We played on the same beaches, 20 years before Esposo would be offered his choice of 2 job locations and choose Milwaukee based on his childhood memories of the place and his uncle's residence here, and we would meet and fall in love.
Sometimes I like to imagine that my 4 year old self looked a bit up the beach and asked the boy Esposo to build sandcastles with me.
Instead, I did 20 years later.
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