Aug. 8, 2017 "Happily ever after...or at least laughter ever after": Today I found this article by Paula Simons in the Edmonton Journal:
The first time he proposed, he planned it out oh so carefully.
We were standing on a Hawaiian beach in the moonlight. The waves were breaking on the sand. And he took out an heirloom diamond ring, one that had belonged to his grandmother, and asked me to marry him.
I said no.
Indeed, I think I laughed.
I had just turned 22. I had just started grad school. The idea of getting engaged, of getting married, struck me as absurd.
The second time he proposed, it was on a pearly-grey morning in San Francisco, the kind of mystical day when the film noir fog makes you feel as though Sam Spade and Joel Cairo are somewhere just around the corner.
I said no.
I had just started a new job. I was still finding my feet as a journalist. It was just not the right time.
The third time he proposed?
Well, the circumstances weren’t exactly romantic.
There’d been a whooping cough outbreak on a First Nations reserve south of Edmonton. I was working for the CBC at the time. One of my newsroom colleagues went down to cover the epidemic — and brought back her own case of whooping cough as souvenir.
The infection spread through the newsroom, taking down four or five of us. (We’d all been vaccinated as kids, but we hadn’t had boosters as adults).
Whooping cough is a ghastly disease. I’d never been so sick. While I whooped and hacked and generally felt like crap, my boyfriend looked after me, making me tea and soup, holding my hand as my body was wracked with wrenching, coughing spasms.
One night, while I was wearing my rattiest nightgown and my ripped housecoat, looking and feeling like complete and utter garbage, he proposed again.
And I said yes.
Because there’s really nothing more reassuring than knowing your partner loves you, even when you are at your very, very worst.
You also have to admire the sly humour in timing a proposal for the moment your partner is most vulnerable.
This Aug. 8 marks our 25th wedding anniversary — which seems almost as absurd, as I type it, as his original proposal. How on earth did we get so old?
When I was a kid, my favourite movies were never rom-coms; they were buddy movies, the sort of “bromance” films where two very different guys would bond, crack jokes and have adventures.
The Man Who Would Be King. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Sting. All the President’s Men.
I think that deep down, those buddy movies modelled the kind of relationship I wanted.
I never wanted to be the marginalized love interest, or the woman who waited at home for the hero to return from his mission. I wanted to be my partner’s equal and best friend.
And that’s the gift he gave me, the one that mattered far more than his Nana’s heirloom diamond — even though I’m still wearing it on my ring finger.
He gave me space and the freedom to be myself, unconfined by gender roles or cultural expectations. He made me his comrade on our great adventure.
I was lucky. My husband was raised by his brave and resourceful single mother to be the best kind of feminist — the kind of who simply took the equality and independence of women for granted.
(I’d also like to thank his three sisters — all smart, strong, outspoken feminists — for their groundwork in preparing their big brother for life with me.)
Marriage is hard work. Forget all the sentimental hogwash you read on wedding cards or inspirational posters.
There isn’t much romance in bickering over who cleans the toilets, who changes the diapers, who pays the property taxes, who calls the furnace repair guy when the heat goes out on the coldest day of the year, who walks the dog in the rain.
The daily grind of parenthood, and later, the daunting responsibilities elder care, are anything but romantic.
And that whole “In sickness and in health” bit? It sounds lovely and poetic in wedding vows. It’s much darker and more daunting in real life.
It’s hard to balance demands of family with demands of career.
It all gets easier though, if you can laugh together — at yourselves and at one another. It’s easier if you can see the absurdity of it all — and somehow still love each other anyway.
A quarter-century of adventures later? We’re both still laughing.
http://edmontonjournal.com/life/relationships/paula-simons-mirth-and-laughter-help-get-to-happily-ever-after
Dec. 22, 2018 Match: Alex and Andy: Today I found this article by Courtney Shea in the Globe and Mail:
Who: Alex Nursall, 31, casting director and journalist; Andy Kelly, 31, graphic designer
Relationship status: Married, together since 2011
Location: Toronto
SWF SEEKING BFF
Alex: I was writing a story about making friends online. The goal was to try as many different methods as possible: I went on Craigslist, Omegle, Chatroulette, OkCupid. Mostly, I just got a lot of creepy responses. Like, “Yeah, I want to be friends too … what do you smell like?” Andy’s response was one of the most normal.
Andy: I had arrived in Canada a few months previous on a one-year work visa. I had met some people through my roommate, but was looking to expand my circle. I saw Alex’s post on OkCupid and I thought, okay, she seems cool. We connected on Facebook and then decided to meet in person.
Alex: Andy didn’t actually make it into my article because we had to postpone. I think he had basketball tickets or something.
Andy: When we did meet I had said that I wanted to see the city [Toronto]. We met up right downtown at Queen and Yonge and just started walking west. The conversation was really easy and natural. At one point we stopped and it was like, wait a second – we’ve been walking for three hours.
MORE THAN FRIENDS
Alex: When we met, I had come out of a long-term relationship, so I wasn’t really looking for anything romantic.
Andy: I was sort of like, who knows, maybe we’ll become friends or maybe she’ll be a creepy weirdo.
Alex: It’s funny because I was actually a mess at the time. A week before that first meet-up, I found out I had bedbugs in my apartment, so I was sleeping on my friend’s couch, wearing my friend’s shirt, my ex’s shoes, my mom’s coat.
Andy: I didn’t notice. It was very organic. We hung out a few times and I remember starting to think, okay, maybe this is more than a friendship.
WILL YOU MARRY ME … AGAIN?
Alex: We met March 30, 2011, on March 30, 2012, Andy moved in and March 30 of the following year we got married. It was like one date for everything
Andy: It’s very easy to remember. Our actual engagement was we had a conversation, we decided we wanted to get married and we did.
Alex: It wasn’t very social-media-worthy.
Andy: I made up for it last year when Alex was turning 30. She gave me this list of weird requests: Cake that looked like sushi, sushi that looked like cake.
Alex: Every guest had to draw a picture of a dog. It was kind of a joke.
Andy: But I decided, okay, I’m going to do this. After all of the weird list stuff, I gave a little impromptu speech, I got down on one knee and asked Alex to marry me.
Alex: This was five years after our actual wedding, so maybe a little late, but so sweet and so lovely. He gave me earrings.
Andy: It scored me some major brownie points
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/relationships/article-match-how-one-swf-looking-for-a-bff-found-a-happy-marriage-instead/
Love is the answer Alex and Andy. What a nice story. Thank you for writing it.
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