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Sentimental lunches.
May. 24th, 2003 11:47 pmFour years ago next week, I picked this strange Swedish guy (SSG) up from the airport in Cincinnati (which is in Kentucky, btw. The airport, that is, not Cincinnati.) SSG and I had spent the better part of the last year talking and becoming friends, and we had finally come to the conclusion that we had to meet to see if we were really going to start a relationship. We knew we loved each other, but we were not ready to commit ourselves to being in love until we met. So, when the big day arrived, I dragged ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stewlis out of bed at an unearthly hour to accompany me to pick up SSG. She took her revenge by spending the day commenting on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed twins I would have at that time a year later, further adding to my agitation. ("Okay. I'm calm, I'm cool, I'm collected. Now get the hell up!") Ahem. Anyway, his plane arrived in the early afternoon, and there was a two hour drive home with Lisa, then meeting the parents and dinner and by the time everyone was gone or done inspecting SSG for signs of axe-murder tendencies, he had been awake for 30 hours or so and went to bed. The next morning, though, it was rather time for us to go out and about and actually spend time without the safety net of family and friends. One would think that I would choose to do something suitably touristy with plenty of people around so we could accustom ourselves to communicating without a keyboard, but no, we went down to the lake, where we were all alone and suddenly, for the first time since we met, without much to say to each other. Actually, it wasn't so much that we had nothing to say, but we weren't really sure where to start.
Anyway, we spent the entire afternoon there at the lake, and we both still have incredibly vivid memories of it. We sat on a picnic table at the top of one of the trails, with the water down the hill through the trees and hardly anyone around. SSG, also nervous and somewhat rambly, gave me an impromptu history of European wars, which was perhaps not the romantic highlight of the day but was strangely endearing. We learned how to hold hands with each other.. not that it's rocket science, but the first time you hold hands with someone, it's new and different from anything that came before and you have to learn what their hand says to your hand. We gradually accustomed ourselves to what we were afraid to believe before then--we had truly found The One. Our first kiss was there on that picnic table. It feels like it's been a very long time since that awkward and exciting and terrifying day. If I was the melodramatic type, I might comment on how my life didn't even begin until then, but we all know that I'm not given to flights of fancy. *cough*
In any case, there are just some days when you wake up and the sun is shining and the temperature is perfect and you know that by lunchtime, you simply must be sitting on that picnic table again with SSG or you'll simply wither away. And that, my dear ones, is exactly what kind of day today was. (Is this perhaps a new record in the amount of time it takes me to get to a point that I could have reached simply by saying "M and I went to the lake for a picnic today."?)
stewlis out of bed at an unearthly hour to accompany me to pick up SSG. She took her revenge by spending the day commenting on the blonde-haired, blue-eyed twins I would have at that time a year later, further adding to my agitation. ("Okay. I'm calm, I'm cool, I'm collected. Now get the hell up!") Ahem. Anyway, his plane arrived in the early afternoon, and there was a two hour drive home with Lisa, then meeting the parents and dinner and by the time everyone was gone or done inspecting SSG for signs of axe-murder tendencies, he had been awake for 30 hours or so and went to bed. The next morning, though, it was rather time for us to go out and about and actually spend time without the safety net of family and friends. One would think that I would choose to do something suitably touristy with plenty of people around so we could accustom ourselves to communicating without a keyboard, but no, we went down to the lake, where we were all alone and suddenly, for the first time since we met, without much to say to each other. Actually, it wasn't so much that we had nothing to say, but we weren't really sure where to start.Anyway, we spent the entire afternoon there at the lake, and we both still have incredibly vivid memories of it. We sat on a picnic table at the top of one of the trails, with the water down the hill through the trees and hardly anyone around. SSG, also nervous and somewhat rambly, gave me an impromptu history of European wars, which was perhaps not the romantic highlight of the day but was strangely endearing. We learned how to hold hands with each other.. not that it's rocket science, but the first time you hold hands with someone, it's new and different from anything that came before and you have to learn what their hand says to your hand. We gradually accustomed ourselves to what we were afraid to believe before then--we had truly found The One. Our first kiss was there on that picnic table. It feels like it's been a very long time since that awkward and exciting and terrifying day. If I was the melodramatic type, I might comment on how my life didn't even begin until then, but we all know that I'm not given to flights of fancy. *cough*
In any case, there are just some days when you wake up and the sun is shining and the temperature is perfect and you know that by lunchtime, you simply must be sitting on that picnic table again with SSG or you'll simply wither away. And that, my dear ones, is exactly what kind of day today was. (Is this perhaps a new record in the amount of time it takes me to get to a point that I could have reached simply by saying "M and I went to the lake for a picnic today."?)
