Chick flicks make me thankful. At every unfortunate turn of events, dooming those destined for each other to one more scene of uncertain anguish, I think, “Boy am I glad to be finished with that!”
I remember well those anxious days before I met my wife. Wondering if there was a woman out there who wouldn’t just think I was a “great guy” but “better we just stay friends.” It’s easy to begin wondering if you’ll ever meet “the one,” if the one even exists, or if you haven’t already met the one and she was the waitress at the dinner last night that you didn’t tip very well. Blast!
Consider this an encouragement. A romantically down-and-outers story of finding love in a place I never expected, happiness in the last person anyone would have thought likely (if that’s not a tag line for a chick flick, I don’t know what is).
My wife and I are very different.
She grew up in a family of world travelers, traversing the globe to live in such places as Japan, Niger, and Uganda. My family were homebodies, perfectly content in our own corner of the world which didn’t often extend farther than Ohio or Pennsylvania. For family vacations, my in-laws would take their two girls trekking up a mountain to see gorillas or whitewater rafting down the Nile. My folks, preferring not to risk a good gorilla stomping or being eaten by piranhas – there’ s piranhas in the Nile, right? – took us to relax in a rustic cabin in safe and pristine PA.
Growing up she was a rebel. Nose ring and all. I thought choir boys were a bit devious and preferred a more tame childhood. We’ve often joked that had we met a few years before we did, I would have thought her “liberal” and she would have labeled me…well, boring.
In college she was involved in everything, completed a double-major with high marks and probably attended more social functions in a month than I did all four years; eight years if you want to include high school, which would still leave her safely ahead. I attended a small, private college where I mostly blended in with the woodwork while quietly earning my diploma.
We met at a horse camp – I hate horses, by the way – and in a lightning fast romance here we are, happily married and still trying to figure out why in the world the other person does what they do. Who’d have thought? In a million hopeful dreams I never imagined someone like Kyna as my wife. Or where I’d meet her. Or how everything would fall into place.
So go rent a good Meg Ryan movie, and between the tears, take heart. Hope, and opportunity, do spring eternal. You never know who’ll be on the next horse to come moseying through town.
Published Aug. 14, 2007 in CinWeekly's "Last Word" column
Labels: editorials, marriage, romance
