It’s funny how you go through your whole life and never hear an expression or the use of a word to describe context that people talk about every day.
Meg and I travelled across the country on our first vacation together last week to attend a friend’s wedding. Nothing quite brings people together or love to the surface like a wedding. This just happened to be the wedding to end all weddings – but that’s another story.
It got Meg and I talking about all sorts of possibilities. We talked about relationships, engagements, weddings, marriages – generally and specifically. Against a backdrop of snowy mountain tops, mirror reflecting lakes, and strolls through Olympic villages – it’s hard to not ponder such heights.
After many lengthy discussions, she turned to me one night and said “You’re my person.”
My person.
Interesting. I had never been labelled as that before.
I have never been married, but was in a long term relationship that many just assumed was marriage. I recall over the years struggling with what to call my now ex-spouse.
- “Wife” was the expectation, but it was just an outright lie. No one had exchanged vows. She had said long ago she wasn’t interested in formalizing our relationship.
- “Common-law” felt like a lack of commitment even though this is the most accurate label. However, it doesn’t roll off the tongue. No one but a tax auditor goes around introducing their someone as their “common-law.”
- “Partner” felt like I was trying to be too trendy, like I was breaking new barriers in relationship definitions, just waiting for the government to legalize common-law relationships.
- “Better-half” felt like a patronizing or self-depriving label of sorts that was a cliché at best.
- “Girl friend,” while also accurate, isn’t a label you typically attribute to someone you’ve had three kids with.
But then Meg called me “her person.” I like that. Like I’m the one that was made just for her. And she is my person, the one who has appeared just for me. There may come a day when we redefine our relationship again, but for now, Meg is my person and I am hers.