I Never Thought I'd Marry Someone 28 Years Older Than Me. Here's Why It's My Best Relationship Ever.

I was only 8 when an older man first caught my attention. It was during “The Parent Trap” that I felt an illicit flutter when Dennis Quaid’s Nick Parker reclined, chest hair exposed, while Meredith Blake, played by Elaine Hendrix, sat on his lap, stroking the tuft of hair.

Throughout my adolescence, there was a rotating list of older men who caught my eye: George Clooney, Russell Crowe, and my parents’ friend Raúl, whose salt-and-pepper beard made me dizzy. I wanted a man who’d been around long enough to have stories — someone whose confidence I could run my fingers through.

But even still, I hadn’t planned on marriage, let alone marrying a man nearly three decades my senior. And then I met Christopher.

The first time I heard his voice, I was hunched over a laptop at Frothy Monkey, a coffee shop in Nashville, the city where we both were living at the time.

“Want to join our book club?” he asked the server.