Sometimes You Just Know…

We’re Valentine’s losers in my household.  We never do anything- some years I’ve gotten flowers (which, yes honey, I know you picked up on your way home because you feel some type of pre-emptive guilt over getting me nothing), but most years we don’t even exchange cards. 

I’m not anti-Valentine’s day.  Quite the opposite- I love this holiday.  I think it’s sweet to set aside a day to remember to say “I love you”, “You’re important”, “You’re special to me”, etc… but we just never put much money into it or much effort.  I could say “Everyday is Valentine’s in our house” (total lie) but the truth is we’re kinda cheap, kinda lazy, and kinda busy, so this love day gets pushed aside.

The thing is, sometimes you just know that you’re happy and in love and life is good with your partner and you don’t really need to spend hundreds of dollars on flowers and trinkets to remind you of that. So let me tell you a little bit about how The Husband and I got together and how our whole relationship has been a series of “just knows…”

I was 21 years old and had just moved to Toronto from Saskatchewan.  I’d lived in Toronto as a kid, but spent my high school and university years in Saskatchewan.  I didn’t really know anyone, I literally had one friend in the whole city.  I had just broken up with my longest term boyfriend (was way over it, so no heartbreak there).  By chance, I met a girl (we’ll call her “S”) at a church I went to one time.  She was really nice, we hung out a few times.  She ended up being a really good friend.

About two weeks after I met her, S asked me to go with her to visit a guy that she really liked.  I had no life (ha, somethings never change!) so I jumped at the chance.  There was kind of a party.  I was bored.  I slept on the floor of the house we were at that night, right where someone had puked earlier (so awesome). I woke up earlier then the whole house with no where to go, no television or internet to keep me busy, so I just sat there.  And that’s when The Husband materialized.

I hadn’t seen him the night before, but he lived at the house we were visiting.  He wasn’t my type at all.  Baggy, skater clothes, dyed hair, piercings.  But, oh my goodness, I liked him so much right away.  Somehow, as people got up and rolled out of the house, The Husband and I sat, uninterrupted on his couch, and talked all morning.  We started off on separate ends of the couch but he (smoothly, heh) kept inching closer until he was practically sitting in my lap.  He took me to McDonalds for lunch. He was so cute and I was just itching to give him my number…willing him to ask for it.  He didn’t.  Jerk.

But he asked my friend S for it the next day.  And he called me.  And I was giddy.  Like, butterflies, flushed face, can’t stop smiling, giddy.  My mom warned me to be careful when I told her about him because (this is a serious quote) “HE MIGHT BE A CREEPY STALKER”.  Ha. 

The Husband came and visited me the next weekend.  He brought me a Cam’ron CD because it had my favourite song on it.  I still have it.  He took me out to Swiss Chalet (I know, we were high class people! McD’s and Swiss Chalet).  I told my friend I was in love with him and I would marry him as soon as he left my house.  The next weekend he told me he was falling in love with me. 

And that was it.  I never dated anyone else.  Neither did he.  He asked me to marry him about 2 or 3 months later.  We were married before we had even known each other for an entire year. He was 23 years old and I was 22.

I wouldn’t recommend our style of falling in love (can you really call it that after 2 weeks?)/getting married, but for us it just worked.  Sometimes in life, you just know.  And, eight years and (almost) two babies later,  I’m glad that we jumped into things blindly.  So what that we don’t celebrate Valentine’s day in any kind of romantic fashion.  Sometimes you just know that you are loved and are in love, and I guess that’s just ok.

PS- The Husband doesn’t like me to post pics of him on the internet….but I’ll try to convince him to let me later…