Posted on

A year later (his view)

Meg and I met a year ago, give or take.  Let’s be honest, we met on Tinder.  I was stuck in one of the more isolated cities on this continent as not one, but two, blizzards passed.  I swiped right on this one photo with the caption – “Gluten tolerant, seek same.”  Catchy!

In the months, and now year since, we have had a lot of laughs together.  We have loved each other with every ounce we can muster.  We cherish the limited time we get together living 992 kilometers apart.  We’ve endured some of life’s greatest heartache, e.g. the loss of her father.   We’ve celebrated the life’s joy, e.g. various marriages and babies of her friends and family.  We’ve risen and fallen and risen again.

She’s a beautiful person – inside and out.  Those of you who know her know what I’m talking about and have only served as testimonials that have hardened my commitment.

We laugh a lot together.  My main purpose in life in to make her laugh.  We are silly together, yet we respect each other.  We support each other and seek to build each other up everyday.  When on of us down, the other makes it their mission to make the day an inch better.  That is the good stuff in relationships.

We both returned to Tinder a year a few days ago later trying to find the origin of what has become “our show.”  Those initial chats.  Those initial messages are now locked behind a paywall of sorts that neither of us compelled to spend to the $40.99 to reveal.  But that too is what I love about her – complete confidence in us to return to the online dating world and have a few laughs about how it all so innocently began over a year ago. We flippantly worked our way through the photos of our peers, happy in knowing that it didn’t matter.

In the past year, I can honestly say that Meg and I have never fought.  While many of you might surmise we are just delaying the inevitable, I suggest that what has made us successful is the transparency of communication.

Don’t mistake, we have had many difficult conversation in the past year – those relating to living together, in which city, and children are perhaps the most difficult for us because there is not clear, easy answer.  There have been many tears, but our discussions have always been calm and reasoned even when solutions are absent. Yet somehow, we inch closer to resolution which on the surface might not seem like progress, yet for those intimately involved, we feel the progress.

Tonight, she is doing wonderful charity work and being the best and brightest essence of herself.  I couldn’t be prouder.  Strong and independent, but profoundly like minded and passionately connected.  That’s us.

I don’t offer advice to anyone anymore in matters of the heart.  My track record sadly speaks for itself. I do however, wish all couples the strength and courage to be honest.  I don’t believe in comprising ourselves for the better of the relationship.  Sure, you can change the odd habit, but fundamentally changing who you are, doesn’t work in the long term.  The relationships with long-term potential are those where you can tackle the hard issues and come away being closer together than further apart, even if nothing is settled.

Peace.

Posted on

Christmas Presence (His View)

I have to apologize.  I’m sorry.  I’ve been horrible at chronicling our dating adventure in recent months.  Bad me.  You can sue me if you like, but rest assured, I don’t care.  It is the holiday season and festive cheer should rule supreme.

So where are we – as in where are Meg and I?

Well….

We are still finding ways to grow closer each and every day.  I’ll be honest, we don’t have it easy.  As you know, we have 1000 kilometers separating us (992 to be exact).  We have 10 years separating our age.  I have + three amazing kids and she has +106 cousins on her side of the world that are both indications of the roots that keep us firmly planted precisely 992 kilometers apart.

Yet…

Yet, despite these challenges, we have found ways to keep grow closer.

After an amazing and fun summer together, the conversation became serious last fall.  These are some pretty big gaps between us and being together and living out our mutual dreams weighed heavy.  Could it really, realistically work?

A couple of months ago, we had the come to Jesus kind of conversation.  There are certain things we can control and others we can’t.   We recognized that the things we couldn’t control were overshadowing all the good between us.  I can tell you that day and that conversation changed all that.  From that day on, we’ve jointly chosen to instead focus on all that is so good about us and not let those issues we can’t solve stand between us.  Since then, we haven’t looked back.  We are embarrassingly that overly cute couple that gushes in each other presence.

We haven’t seen each other in two weeks and it’s another two weeks until we will see each other.  It is the longest we’ve been apart since we met last March.

I’m flying to see her just after Christmas with my children to spend New Year’s Eve with her.  I couldn’t be happier or looking forward to it more.  I think we’ve both been scoping airline fares looking for any deals to catch an earlier rendez-vous.

And even though I won’t be there to wake up with her on Christmas morning, you better believe I’m thinking about it.  There is nothing more romantic than thinking about waking up on Christmas morning next to each other –  the fruition of anticipation…the climax of anticipation.  Mmm…. (cue melting icebergs)

What do you get the love of your life when in fact you can’t share this moment with that person? It’s a quandary to me.  It haunts me.   Please comments with your ideas so that I might sweep her off her feet.  She hardly reads this blog, so rest assured, it’s mostly between you and me.

 

Posted on

This Side of Amazing (His View)

To the six of you following this tale, I deeply and sincerely apologize for my lack of updates this summer.  We’ve been busy.

Meg and I were lying in bed watching the Bachelorette last night sipping champagne pretending that we were contestants.  Every commercial break brought another level of ecstasy and foreshadowed bigger and better moments to come.

We’ve been bouncing around the country and back and forth between our two provinces for the better part of five months now.  In fact, yesterday was our six month anniversary from the that freakish, hellish double blizzard that got me stuck in this frontier province in the first place.

I will admit to you, that the place is remarkably better 6 months later during the summer.  I’m sitting here on the deck writing you now as a moose wanders up the neighbours yard.  I have whales in the ocean below my deck surfacing, clearing their blow holes and diving back down for a smorgasbord of presumably more fish.  I’m surrounded by ocean and cliffs so high and steep that they make the Cliffs of Insanity (Princess Bride reference) feel like a climbing wall at the day care.  I had a team of painters painting the deck today.  I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but the deck looks right good, so I spose it doesn’t much matter. Yes Buy!  A new perspective for sure.

My mother and my eldest daughter were over on this trip.  My daughter had a thing with my mother to go to.  It’s really nice of Meg to entertain my mother.  I’m still having a wee bit of issues with the whole divorce thing with my eldest daughter, but I’m glad she got the opportunity to see this beautiful part of the country.

The next leg of our adventures puts Meg and I in another province to see my Sister and two weeks later in another province to see my cousin.  The B&M road show continues…

 

Posted on

A Second Look (His View)

Some people and places are worth a second (or third or fourth) look.  The more you see, the deeper you respect and admire the inner and outer beauty.   It feels like home.

 

 

Posted on

My Person (His View)

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.

Posted on

My Way (his view)

I like strong people.  I admire a strong person, particularly of the female persuasion. I’m a sucker for powerful, feminine magnetism.  I love a lady who has an effortless air of presence.  It’s such an attractive quality to me.

One whom embodies such wily persuasions diverts my attention, in a good way.  She pulls me forward and makes me want to be more.   I get excited to spend time with her and share ideas.

When we share a vision, we take turns leading and following, pulling each other to ever higher plateaus.  Don’t we all need someone in our life that inspires us?

My girl hooked me when I first heard her saying “my way.”  The context was very sweet – raising money for charity before an evening out with her “Saturday night rock” (her now late father).  I’ve never heard the use of those two simple words in that context before.  Eloquent and poignant in hindsight.

She always does things her way.  Her way is wickedly compassionate.  Her way is awesomely considerate.  Her way is lovingly sweet.  Her way is outrageously authentically hers in all the good ways a “way” could be.

Her way is becoming my way and I’m glad we are travelling in the same way together.    I hope to see her rolling in the dough my way…or hers.  I’m indifferent.

 

Posted on

Mille-feuille (his view)

Commitment comes in ever deepening layers – relationship mille-feuille.  Just when you think you’ve found another layer of sweet creamy pastry, another just as soft and tasty just lies just below.  With each sweet creamy layer, we just fall deeper in love with … um … French pastry?!?

Last weekend.

She knows what I mean, but maybe you need a few more details.  Let me foreshadow…it went really well.

  • Met the parents – well mine – we did.  Check.
  • My sister and cousin, who my girl has never met, text with her more than they do with me.   Check.
  • Of course, it was a bit hairy when she stayed with me for the first time.  After a week of scrubbing and disinfecting, I think my place sparkled by man standards, though maybe not like the top of the Chrysler building.  Relief and check.

More importantly, there was something amazingly special to spend time together last weekend.  We had conversations that projected us together well into the future.

In previous conversations, the tone was more of due diligence and framed as a question – could we make a long distance relationship work?  Last weekend the context changed from could it work to how can we make this work.  A subtle but noticeable and very emotional shift in the conversation.

Emotional in the context that this isn’t going to be easy.  Not only do we have a large body of water between us, but we have local anchors that don’t travel with us when we see each other.   We are both thinking about more than just ourselves and playing a bit of Tetris to try and make the pieces fit.

But when it moves beyond exploratory discussion to a commitment to making it happen, oh my, things get very real.  The mille-feuille thickened before our eyes.  I, rather I mean we, are very excited and a bit scared at the same time to keep going deeper and deeper into this delicious pastry.

It’s just so good, we cannot stop nibbling on it, or each other.

 

Posted on

One (his view)

 

We only get to choose one person in life, that is our partner in life.  Now let’s recognize that more than a few of us make this choice successively, but we all seek “the one.”

The one person who can go the distance with us.  The one person who compliments with our strengths as well as our weaknesses.  The one person that we can’t wait to see and hate to leave.

You don’t get to pick your parents.  You don’t get to pick your extended family or your in-laws.  You don’t even get much say in picking your children.

No, the only real choice we have is picking one person to sleep next to each night.  It’s the same person we wake up next to and welcome each day.

I like that idea.  It’s simple.  It’s pure.  It’s profoundly deep and deeply intimate.

One.

Just one.

My one reads like computer code.  The number one person I want to share stories of my day with.  Number one on my speed dial.   Number one in my heart.

She even lives in the A1A postal code making her one of the first people on this continent to experience every new day.  I want to be the one to share that experience with my number one.

One day, we will become one.  When added together, one plus one, we will equal 11, because that’s how we do math in the A1A.