Yesterday my husband and I celebrated our 6^th wedding anniversary. And by celebrate I mean, we spent the day being parents with very minimal interactions between us, romantic or otherwise. We were meant to go away the weekend that just passed, but thanks to the influenza that wiped out our household, those plans did not come to fruition.

It’s hard to believe we were only married 6 years ago. I feel like I can’t remember a time before Nelson, yet 6 years also feels so inconsequential in the grand scheme of life. In saying that, I also feel like we’ve been through an enormous amount in the time we’ve been together. We were engaged less than 12 months into dating and married 8 months later. We’ve sold a home. We’ve built a home. We had a baby. We had a miscarriage. He had open heart surgery. We had another baby. It feels like we’ve lived a lifetimes of struggle already, yet feels like we’ve only skimmed the surface of what life entails.

When I think back to the two lovestruck individuals we were when we first met, I’m proud of how far we’ve come and what we’ve been able to build together.

Before I met Nelson, I had a long line of unsuccessful entanglements. My romantic history consisted of ‘boys’ who friend-zoned me. ‘Boys’ who were obsessed with me and needed me in their life but ‘didn’t see me that way’ *eye roll*. Or ‘boys’ who were incapable of anything true and serious. So a long line of situationships you may say.

Nelson was the complete opposite of all of that.

Nelson and I met at work. At the time, I was working for a family business in head office and he was a tradesman in their employ. Before we even ‘noticed’ each other, I had noticed him. He wasn’t the typical guy I went for, but could appreciate his attractiveness and allure. The first time I saw him, I actually thought he would be my best friends type. A tall, strong, bearded white boy. My type (before Nelson) was someone a little more ethnic than him (to put it politely haha). So although he wasn’t my type initially, I knew he was still hot haha.

It wasn’t until we started to have to interact with each other more frequently at work that I found myself being drawn to him, and wanting his attention.

Things turned a corner for us at a work Christmas party (how stereotypical of us). Nelson, thanks to some liquid courage finally started flirting back with me. Up until this point, my flirting was met with nothing lol (he claims because he was too shy, and because I was his bosses niece haha). Not long after, I took his number from his employee profile at work and I was the first to message him. How feminist of me lol. He claims that he KNEW I would do that and that’s why he didn’t bother asking for my number. He apparently was confident in the fact I was going to do it first. Otherwise he swears he would’ve asked me. I like to think that’s true haha.

The minute we started talking outside of work and getting to know each other, I knew Nelson was different to any boy I knew before him. Nelson wasn’t a boy, he was a man. A man who knew what he wanted. A man who knew what was standing right in front of him. A man that wasn’t afraid to dive in head first, and that he did. He liked me so quickly that it scared me. So much so that I tried to self sabotage to begin with. It scared me because as much as I’d thought I’d been in love before, I knew those experiences were nothing in comparison to what was right in front of me. With Nelson, it was true, it was real, it was love beyond anything I thought I knew.

I remember when I was single, couples in relationships would say “when you know, you know” and that statement would infuriate me so much. For a detail oriented person, I needed, well, more detail. How did you know? What was the exact feeling? How did it differ from a previous experience? What exactly did you know?

When I met Nelson, that sentiment came to life. True love I sometimes think is like blind faith. There’s no real logic behind it. It cannot be explained or theorised. It’s just an intense feeling and conviction that you know that you know that you know. It’s also a feeling shared between two. You cannot understand that sentiment unless another feels it with you. Otherwise how can it be true? You can’t feel it alone. That’s unrequited love. But to truly know that someone is yours, is to also have them know that too. With Nelson, that was my first experience with that. With being loved back as intensely as I loved him. And to know that my first experience of true love is my LASTing experience of it, I feel blessed and privileged. It’s not easy finding love, especially in 2024, so yes, I feel privileged I have someone that is mine alone to love, and who alone loves me above all else.

As hard as it can be to continuously love your life partner, because, well, life! I’m choosing this anniversary to appreciate the fact I get love. To know that sharing my life with a significant other is a blessing and a privilege and as much as we’d probably want to kill each other sometimes, we truly are the lucky ones. That’s the extraordinary I’m choosing to take from this ordinary day/life. We can get so caught up ‘living’ life, the blurring of days and the monotony of daily life, that we forget the magic we have. That being our true love story. It’s nice to stop occasionally, even if it’s just that one time a year to reflect and remember, that even though everyday feels like groundhog day, we still have magic in the midst of us.

This is excerpt 8.