Right in the Middle of an Ordinary Life

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale. —Author unknown


I was born out of a fairytale.

My parents met in college—my father dipped my mother back in his arms and kissed her. I don't know the interim between the kiss and when they started dating, I only know that they did begin to date. I know that my father carefully planned a route so as to drive my mother off into the sunset while heading for a romantic dinner. I know my father joined the Navy, and I know my mother wouldn't marry him at first because she did not want to be a military wife.

I know that four years later, after drifting apart, my father returned to my mother, showing up on her doorstep one night just to say, "I'm back."

I know that my father saved my mother's life.

I know my parents worked hard for their Happily Ever After. I know they're still working at it—and I know it's as strong and stable as ever, because they do work at it.

I know that Happily Ever After is a real thing, because my parents made one happen.

I know that, when asked to describe their love in six words, my father said, "Oh wow! Love at first sight!" and my mother said, "Frog, frog, frog—prince! Thank God!"

I was born out of a fairytale.

And so, when I think about how we met, I can only laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Because honestly, who—knowing all the stereotypes of relationships—would believe me when I tell them that I met you in winter, on a beach, for a photo shoot? And that all our pictures looked like engagement pictures?

Of course they wouldn't. Clichés are cliché for a very good reason, just like fairytales, and very rarely does real life actually give them credibility.

Except for us. So when people ask me how we met, I just smile helplessly and giggle.

It was a warm day for two days after Christmas, and an especially warm day for being at the beach two days after Christmas at 7 am in the morning for the express purpose of a photo shoot involving immersion in the water. But the fairytale doesn't start there, on the beach two days after Christmas at 7 am in the morning. The fairytale starts two hours earlier, at 5 am in the morning, when I learned from my photographer friend that one of our models for the shoot had backed out last minute, and we were down to three people—her, me, and you. Every fairytale needs to start with a problem to be solved, doesn't it? And this was ours. But, being heroes and heroines, we bravely pressed on with the day, and so she and I climbed into the belly of our faithful steed (her little dark blue Honda) and set off to find the last member of our adventurous party—you.

You came barreling out the front door of your home with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, bouncing against your lower back with every bounding step you took; a duffel bag filled with all the accoutrements of a well-prepared knight—spare clothes and a towel. You climbed into the belly of our faithful little dark blue Honda, and off we sped into the misty gray light of the pre-dawn.

It was a fast journey, full of raunchy jokes, zombie love stories, tea, and wacky personal histories. We had a few close calls of nearly being swept out to sea, or nearly losing the camera, and at the end of the day my photographer friend had the misfortune to realize that you and I were, well, you and I. She had the gift of Sight, but then again, she'd spent all day watching us through a camera lens as we grabbed onto each other a little too often and held on just a little too long, as our eyes would meet and skitter away. And really, if you look through a camera lens for a long enough time you begin to see things that most people generally don't, and she, well, she'd been looking through camera lenses for a very long time so her powers of Sight were very strong.

So, as comes with most self-fulfilling prophecies, this one, too, came true.

Fast-forward through the ordinary bits, all the interesting bits of school and work and daily life apart, fast-forward through the touches and the invitations and the meals and the movies, through the dancing and the flirting and the late-night chats that last until I fall asleep on the keyboard, waking up the next morning just in time to go to class with keyboard marks on my cheek and me still wearing something from the day before, no time to get breakfast because I stayed up too late and overslept.

Fast-forward through the dreams and the wishing and the hoping, and the utter certainty that there's no way you couldn't have a girlfriend already, no way you could even possibly think of me that way, because who would want a girl with plain brown eyes and plain brown hair and too many freckles? Who would want a girl with more curves than most thin, angular, modern beauties, a girl who loves to eat good food and cook good food and share large meals with family and friends? Who would want a girl with a dream always just right behind her plain brown eyes, ready to come spilling out from her pen in a deluge of words or from her mouth in an excited chatter of delighted creation? Who would want a girl that can't dance in any contemporary sense, yet can glide across the floor in a 19th century Congress of Vienna, or a rotary waltz, or a polka, or East Coast Swing? Who would want a girl with a heart that is far too large and far too shy, a girl with an awkwardly artless kind of compassionate grace? Who would want a girl that has always dreamed of True Love's Kiss?

Fast-forward through all of that, fast-forward through the hesitant, hopeful, whirlwind courtship dance, to find the princely knight at the end of the story who wants a girl just like that because he saw not a girl with plain brown eyes and plain brown hair and too many freckles, but a girl who made him feel like he was in love for the first time, a girl who could teach him how to twirl across the floor in a 19th century rotary waltz, a girl who could share herself with him and take care of the parts of himself that he shared with her in return, a girl who would always delight him with something new. A girl who wasn't a princess or a damsel in distress, but a woman he could love.

Fast-forward to another photo shoot. It's a spring night, late in nocturnal hours, and this time at the end of it it's just you and me. There are no monsters to fight except the looming specter of our own nerves, and there's a tender vulnerability in your eyes—and a blinding hope in my own eyes, twin to the knot in my throat that barely allows me to breathe as you blurt out, Can I kiss you?

I can only nod, because this is what I've wanted for so long. It's a soft kiss, a sweet kiss, a gentle press of your lips to mine that deepens into something out of a trashy romance novel that makes my mind race so fast that I can think nothing at all except, Oh!  And when the kiss is done, and all I can see in the pre-dawn gloom is the shadows of your face, hovering above mine, and you bite your lip, obviously wondering whether you should speak or stay silent, and I am wishing, oh God I am hoping, praying that you say something, anything—and then I hear, whispered in the morning darkness, I know it's five in the morning and we're in the guest bedroom and my parents are upstairs asleep and you're exhausted and this isn't romantic at all, God you make me so nervous, it's like being in high school all over again, wanting a girl for the first time, I know I'm fucking this up but would you be my girlfriend?

What could I do but put all my own nerves, all my own hope, all my dreams and wishes and longings into a smile that nearly split my face in two and whisper, because I wanted to shout but had no air to do so; whisper to you in triumph, Yes!