I don’t see my fiance during the week, except for occasional lunches. We work different schedules. I arrive home from work an hour or so after he leaves to start his day.
Most weeks we meet for lunch on Wednesday. He usually comes downtown and we pick a spot on a bench or by the river to have a picnic.
It’s both ordinary and extraordinary.
Two weeks ago a group of adults on some sort of work-related scavenger hunt stopped us to ask if we’re together. They needed to find a couple to tell how they got together in a short recorded video clip. They hit record and I said “we were friends for a couple of years and now we’re engaged”.
I didn’t simplify that for the sake of saving space on this website. That is literally all I said. They thanked us and moved on, probably to find a couple with a better story to tell.
But we do have a better story to tell. I left out so many things.
I didn’t mention the story he tells of the first day he met me at work – how he remembers what I was wearing.
I didn’t mention the nights we went out with co-workers to our favorite pizza spot downtown and played pool.
I didn’t say one word about the night we carpooled, entirely out of convenience, and a simple conversation about concerts made us realize there was something more.
I didn’t tell them how we went on our first date to waffle house because it was the only place open when we got off work at midnight on a Wednesday, or how our second date was spent throwing a football back and forth on a local high school field.
I didn’t tell them Russ waited until the fourth date to kiss me (and I was *this* close to thinking I had misinterpreted the whole thing).
I didn’t say one word about how Russ came into my life at a time when I was struggling more than ever with friendships and heartbreak – and how he unknowingly saved me from a weird, stupid spiral of sadness that was so unlike me.
I left out the part about how he makes me laugh hard every single day, and that he laughs at all of my stupid jokes. He even laughs when I tell him (all the time) that he is “the weirdest one in this relationship” because we both know I’m deflecting.
I didn’t tell them this is the easiest thing I’ve ever done, or that his family made me feel like part of their family the minute I met them.
I didn’t tell them that planning a wedding is my worst nightmare and somehow Russ makes it fun.
Somewhere in town there are three co-workers who think they met a nice, boring couple with a terrible story to tell their future children.
Because some things are too big for conversation.
Elizabeth LaFleur 