On a manic Monday, just before I run through the door the Engineer stops me while still on the phone. “Wait” he signals with his hand why I am impatiently putting my stuff in the car.
From his pocket, he pulls a tiny little gift. “Happy twenty years” he says as I am closing the boot.
Wow. Idiot that is me had forgotten.
So I thought I would tell you about this day, 20 years ago. If you knew us then there may be familiar references. If you still know us now… thank you for hanging around.
I was 19 years old and had known my future husband for a few months through mutual friends. We tended to hang out as a group, but being terribly conservative and still living at home I mostly saw this group of friends on campus only. I was in my first year of studies in publishing and he was a second-year engineering student. He also had long hair and on this specific day he was wearing a tie, because he had had a presentation in one of his classes. All his friends had already left for their holiday and he was leaving the following day to join them. His to-this-day best friend’s grandmother had a house on the coast where they all flocked regularly. He was taking the Grayhound. This is how old we are. He liked to wear Rocky’s … that he may still own.
In celebration of his presentation that had gone well (apparently) and the fact that he could now remove his tie, he invited me for a drink at Cool Runnings. This later became a regular hangout for us. When we walked in Anton Goosen was sitting at his, what we would later figure out, regular table. With his bandana, nursing a draught. We ordered two pan-galactic gargle blasters. It was my choice and this was from my favourite book. We ate chicken strips and we made small talk.
During this very tall drink on this hot afternoon I got an SMS, yes, again, this is how long ago this happened. It was another friend, inviting me to karaoke that evening… not my favourite pass time and I jokingly told the engineer-in-training that he had to find an excuse for me to not go. He announced that we were going on a date that night and he will be picking me up at 18h00.
Now, he did everything right. He came to the door. He greeted the folks. He tried to not get eaten by our very agro Scottish terrier. He opened the door for me and apologised for his (very) dirty car, but he only washed it twice a year. Turns out this was not a joke.
He took me to the Fat Cuban. It was at the Brooklyn circle above the Spur. I believe it later burned down. There we had something called an Archers Bilini… It had a little dried apricot at the bottom of the champagne glass and I remember wondering how he knew to order it. Turns out it was a recommendation from his previous girlfriend. Luckily, at the time, I was too conservative to be insecure.
So now consider that we have spent an afternoon together ticking all the small-talk boxes that a one-on-one conversation requires. We sat there with nothing to say until he quietly started humming to the song “Where is my mind”, by the Pixies. And just like that, the conversation started and never stopped.
After we both established that my CD collection was everything that he had ever dreamt of and that we both loved Terry Pratchet and had a library card that we actually used, he officially asked me to be his girlfriend. Yes, again, this is how old we are. Things needed to be official.
And then the next day he climbed on the Grayhound heading to the coast for a week during which time we had conversations from my parent’s landline to his Motorolla that still took penlight batteries if the actual one was flat… The engineer had forgotten his charger. He had to buy a lot of batteries.
So yes, somewhere in this day I had forgotten that it was 20 years, today, but I can remember almost everything of our first date (that happened in two parts). Down to his embarrassing button-down shirt with the vintage car on. It was not perhaps the car but probably the palm trees that made it… unique.
In 20 years I have dumped him twice, and then I married him. I had had two homes, hounds and Lilliputians. We had made each other MP3 CDs. We have had fantastic and awful wine and everything in between. We have hiked. We have gone camping and learnt that we like chalets. I had asked “what are you reading” a million times. We have planned menus and holidays and made dept and paid some of it off. We had chosen art and cupbourds and electrical appliances. We have killed plants (unintentionally) and planted new ones. One of us went deaf and the other had gone grey. We have been to funerals and weddings and I had even gotten him to dance (it requires 3 drinks). We had been to shows and ran races. Some of us tried to play tennis and some of us attended a ballet. We had been through a pandemic. We are living through a war.
I have now officially known you half my life, my heart.