when i knew i met the one.

don't let our meeting in paris fool you.

Despite the title, I’m actually not fond of calling someone ‘The One’. For starters, it reminds me of an Elton John song that I have a complicated relationship with. I can’t seem to figure out if I like it or not because, I don’t know….Lion King-era Elton…but it does get stuck in my head where I have to then stream it and belt it out like it’s ‘I Feel For You’ by Chaka Khan. So…yeah, it’s complicated. But really I don’t like it because someone can be ‘The One’ for a moment in our lives before another ‘One’ makes more sense for us….

They don’t call me romantic for nothin’.

Saying that….my husband and I did celebrate our ten-year-anniversary last week and maybe, just this once I’ll stop acting like a child-of-divorce and take this moment to rejoice and reflect.

This is me rejoicing. And making guac. (Multi-tasking.)

And now on to the reflecting.

I’m not going to bore you with our marriage timeline because that would be as entertaining as looking at a co-worker’s vacation photos, but I will share the moment that it dawned on me that I might just be dating my husband.

Cue Elton.

My Father-in-Law is one of those dads who saves everything of his kids. So, him showing up at our house with a shopping bag filled with my husband’s report cards isn’t an unusual occurrence. The first time I discovered a box of his “personal effects” we had only been dating a few months, but the moment struck me as notable in the realm of romantic mysticism.

If I had to imagine what a moment like this looked like it could have involved, I don’t know, discovering a shared obscure interest or gifting me with a vinyl of a band I love that I never told him about. Now add the fact that we were dating in Paris so you’d think his Vespa would be somewhere in the equation, cobblestones along the Seine, or some moment in front of that gold phallic-looking iron thing that pokes out in the middle of the city.

But no.

My moment was finding THIS:

“What are these?” I asked.

“Those were my business cards I handed out at school,” he replied with shoulders pressed back as if it were the most basic thing ever.

“Oh.” I looked at it again, concealing my smirk. “Business cards that you got professionally printed out?” I flicked the edge impressed by the weight of the cardstock.

“Yes.”

“But why does it say Happy New Year (Bonne Année)?”

“Because I handed them out in January.” He looked at me, like, duh.

“And you were a comic book artist (dessinateur de B.D)?”

“Not really but I wanted to be one.”

“Manifesting before internet life coaches claimed the concept.” I smiled at the innovation. “And your classmates could call the house before 8pm (avant 20 heures)?”

“Yes.”

“And did they?”

“No.”

“And the penguin?”

“It was a Clip Art option at the print shop.” He looked at it and smiled. “I thought was cute.”

I held it in my hand imagining him going with his dad to the local print shop that’s now our friend’s astrology boutique, getting them made with all the big decisions to consider like alignment and font and then handing them out to his class.

“Why are you laughing?” he asked as he also started to laugh. “What, you wouldn’t have done something like that?” He looked at me like I was actually cool in Middle School (and I guess High School also). “Probably not, huh?”

Ha.

Holding the card, I took a second to think back on my January 1994. I was in the 7th Grade. I remember coming back from the holiday break and a girl in my class telling me that ‘Hey, Jealousy’ by the Gin Blossoms was the greatest song ever (pure lies) and the upcoming Valentine’s Day dance embarrassed me but still I had my mom take me to Contempo Casuals for a pleated mini skirt in the same plaid motif as Axl Rose’s kilt in the rooftop scene of the ‘Don’t Cry’ video.

So, the question stood: would I have done something like this?

My school was really mean (like the pretty girls protesting the Special Ed kids mean), so probably not. But would I have wanted to? Let’s see…if the penguin was a unicorn. And my job was something editorial since I enjoyed crafting construction paper magazines in my room that featured Stephanie Seymour using pictures I cut out of my mom’s Victoria’s Secret catalogue that raised so, so, so many questions in my family. And I would have had callers call before my mom’s wine kicked in which would be before Seinfeld or Models Inc. (depending on the day) so I’d put down a five o’clock cut-off call time.

“Yes,” I answered his question. “I would have wanted my own business cards for my fictional bedroom business.” I looked at the card again. “Absolutely.”

And that was it. The very moment that I knew—I knew!— that I was with the person I was supposed to see the moon make several rotations around the earth with.

Then I found his laminated FBI identification card complete with a palette-expander-Sergio-Tacchini-wearing-photo of him.

And by then, I was fucking cooked.

But I had to stay cool.

“We would have been friends in 7th grade,” I said casually as if I didn’t just win the ‘my person’ lottery.

“Maybe,” he replied as I watched him consider it. “We wouldn’t have been able to communicate though.”

“Well, then good thing we met after my Alliance Française and your English by Liam Gallagher.” I then put the stack of cards back in the box his dad had dropped off and discreetly slipped one in my wallet where it hangs out to this very day.

In honor of our ten-year anniversary, I present to you the comic book artist and the editor-in-chief of construction paper magazines.

Not bad for a bunch of nerds. Happy anniversary to us!

(Yes, I’m wishing us a happy anniversary)!

Thanks for reading!

LCM