icook: You'll Just Know

I have been married for almost a year. Quite the accomplishment considering that just over 2 years ago I had mentally made note that I would likely not ever get married but would have a wonderful single life full of friends, family, and fun times. It's not that I didn't want to get married, it's just that I basically had given up on any man being right for me. I didn't want to settle. Ever. Dating started out as the quest for a husband. I thought that's what people did. Dated, fell in love, everything was hunky-dory, and then they got proposed to on one knee at a restaurant and married in a lavish ceremony at a church with loads of people dabbing their eyes at how beautiful everything was. As my relationships proved to be less than perfect, and the more time that went on, I was confinced that people who were married and swore to me when I confronted then on how they knew that their partner was "the one" and they told me "they just knew", were liars. I cross-examined every family member of friend that married their childhood or highschool sweetheart, determined that through this analysis, I would discover the link or the key that would allow me to know for certain whether or not a boyfriend was right to be my husband. I'm sure many victims of my true-love knowledge quest rolled their eyes at my insessent questioning, but again, I was sure that they were leaving something out. The same way that your grandmother's perfect pie recipe never turns out tasting quite the same when you make it as when she does, even though she swears it's the right recipe. You know that they are leaving something out. Some small detail or tidbit that if only you knew, their secret would really be out there for the world. I figured if I kept asking and asking the same questions, eventually, someone would slip and fill me in on the secret of knowing if it was true-love or not. You couldn't "just know", how silly. Their was a formula. Apparently married people kept this a secret though. In my mind, the secret was chance. They married someone that they liked quite a lot, even loved, and basically, they weren't perfect but they would learn to love everything about them. They took a chance. Now, obviously, being privy to the married club's secrets, looking back, this assumptions seems rather horrible and shocking. The way I see it though, is you you only marry one person. If you married the right person, you're with them forever. End of story. So, anyone else who isn't right for you to marry, the relationship doesn't work out. So, until you are united with your soulmate, your other half, all the rest of your relationship were destined to fail. There was never a chance, only you aren't going to know that right off the hop. So, I went along in life, dating non-soulmates, but trying to make them into ones. I figured failed relationships were a mark on my character, somehow relfective of a failure on my efforts or my self. Also, since I thought that marriages did involve settling but taking a chance and just putting in a lot of effort, that I could just make something work.

When I met my would-be-now husband, I was in no mood for anything serious. I was jaded towards dating based on my past experiences and I was none too eager for any man to be allowed emotionally close to me. As far as I was concerned, none had earned the right. C changed my feeling on so many things. He turned out the be the one that I talked to until early hours of the morning until both of my cordless phones were dead. If my day was terrible or amazing, he was the first one that I wanted to tell about it. When I got into a car accident, I called him first. I opened my kitchen to him and we'd make dinners together and talk about everything. He was and is my best friend. That's not something that happens in the blink of an eye either. It's also not something that can be seen through rose-coloured glasses. Through many teary and tragic conversations, we learned about the best and worst of each other. Our biggest fears, our biggest regrets, our most vulnerable moments were now trusted to each other. He knew everything about me. And I was ok with that. There was complete trust. There was something still missing though. The sign. My grandma would always get mad at me and smack me saying "what, do you need a hammer to hit you on the head to know?!" and I would just smile appologetically and say "no, I'm just not sure..." You know what happened? The same thing that all those married people were telling me about! It wasn't a lie after all! It was an awakening. One day, I just stopped. It was like the cogs in my brain finally unjammed themselves and started whirling at full speed to make up for lost time, and with a flurry of snapping and firing synapses, everything was so clear. "He's the one" I whispered. I felt as though I had been staring at a blackboard with the equation 1+1= for the past year, and only now could I see that the answer was so simply and clearly 2. And that it was always 2, and that it could only ever be 2. Except the answer wasn't 2. It was C. He was the one for me. I knew it without a doubt, without a hesitation. There was no thought of settling. He was my best friend, my partner in crime, my confidante, my everything. Imagining life without him in it was uncomprehensible. How could I have been so stupid and so blind all this time?! I almost lost him! I felt such a wave of relief that my heart and brain had finally aligned and agreed. I knew from that moment on, that he was my soul mate and other half, and that I didn't want to be with anyone else but him. Ever. Dating never worked for us. It implied testing the waters. It wasn't serious enough for how we felt. We weren't interested in playing games. That was it for both of us. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Four days later, we C asked me to marry him and I said yes. Over a month later, C asked me again, this time with a ring, over a homemade waffle breakfast. Our families were thrilled, overjoyed, and sighing with relief and "well, it's about time!" Less than a year later, I married my best friend with my closest friends and family there to act as witness to our promises. Today, I sit in our house that we're building together, our dog sleeping in her bed, our dinner on the stove, and my husband reading a book on the couch. All is right with the world and I am almost tearing up over how thankful I am that we worked out. To those of you dating someone, wondering if they are "the one"....I say this to you: you'll just know :)

I was told to take a picture of the breakfast my boyfriend made and when I turned around and lifted the lense to my eye, this is what I saw. My soon to be fiance sat there, waiting, with a big grin on his face.

I was going somewhere with this being married for almost a year thing...Oh, right! So, C keeps bugging me about an anniversary present. Upon which I would always reply "I don't need anything and would be happy with just something small". Which he would roll his eyes to and say, "I know you don't need anything, but I was to get you something that you'd never buy for yourself. I want to spoil you with something". And then we exchanged more eye-rolling. Well, he came home from work this week with a brown box in his hands and a smile on his face. He had writen in black sharpie down the side of it, a note. "To my lovely wife," it began. Hubs wrote some pretty wonderful stuff and then it said, "you know I like to spoil you...and it was on sale (you're rubbing off), which made me laugh so hard because I am the deal queen. I opened by gift and it was a new camera! C has been listening to me bitch and moan about the horrible pictures my old point and shoot would take. "Argh! Everything comes out yellow when I'm taking stove top pictures! Good thing I can use Photoshop! Stupid camera, wrecking my blog pictures...grumble grumble..." Also, there is a photo contest at work that I would desperately love to win. Winners get their photo in the national calendar AND get a prize! Fame, fortune and glory, I'm in it to win it, folks! So, here she is!