meant to be

i know i'm a few days late, but i wanted to write about Valentine's Day. it's never been a favorite holiday of mine, but maybe because this was our last V-Day as a non-married couple, i found myself reflecting on the first V-Day Michael and i ever spent together.

it was February 1999. we were seniors in college, both living in the same dorm building. V-Day was on a Sunday that year, which is not as bad as it being on a Friday or Saturday, but i still had the entire day to contemplate being very single, no classes or obligations to distract me. 

i had planned to spend the day alone. i'm sure there was some chocolate or pizza involved (probably both)—but what i was most excited about was watching a movie on VHS (no one had DVDs back then) that i'd seen in the theater the previous fall, Next Stop Wonderland. it was such a "me" movie: good, misunderstood, prone-to-sarcasm girl is single and dissatisfied with her dating options. mom intervenes, places a personal ad on her behalf, and hilarity ensues. it was mostly about fate and timing with the overarching message that things work out, true love blossoms, if you're patient. 

so i was at least looking forward to tempering my loneliness and frustration with a little hope, even if it was fabricated by Hollywood. 

now, i forget exactly how the events of the day transpired—it was 10 years ago and my college journals are in a box at my parents' house—but what i do remember is that Michael came a-knockin' that afternoon, just as i was settling in to watch my movie, and he stayed. he didn't want quarters for laundry, he didn't want to raid my fridge. he wanted to stay. he wanted to hang out with me, on Valentine's Day, in my dorm room, despite the fact that he had a sort-of girlfriend at the time.

so we stretched out on my skinny, dorm-style twin bed and i pressed "play" on my beloved movie and—to my recollection—he proceeded to talk through most of it. he asked questions about the characters and the plot. he was just being his goofy, endearing self but i was super-serious back then and all i could focus on was how he was ruining my movie. 

then again, i could have kicked him out and i didn't. 

after the movie, i think we actually talked for a while about relationships and that's when he told me he'd bought this quasi-girlfriend of his a Claddagh ring. it nearly killed me because first of all, i couldn't stand the girl (such a phony-baloney) and second of all, she was Jewish! what did she need an Irish Claddagh ring for? (i know that's an un-PC thing to say, but you know what i mean.) and on top of that, she didn't strike me as especially nice or deserving.

obviously, i was green with envy. i still didn't understand why no one was giving me an Irish Claddagh ring on Valentine's Day.  

eventually Michael left my room, to go take the girl to dinner somewhere and give her the blasted ring. in my memory, he left somewhat reluctantly (i knew they wouldn't last) and i might have been a teensy bit grateful to have not spent all of V-Day alone. 

we have spent many February fourteenths together since that time and they're a microcosm of our relationship—some were low-key, some were romantic, some were...dramatic—but V-Day 2009 was the best so far. we had a whole day to spend together doing as we pleased, no errands to run, no car trips to take, no to-do lists to tick off. we spent the afternoon in the city, wandering around MoMA, and then FAO Schwarz and then the Village. it was a fun, cozy, sweet and perfect day. 

Michael teases me all the time about our first Valentine's Day together—how in his mind it was such a nice experience, meanwhile i was hating the fact that he was there. i'm sure i didn't hate it nearly as much as i let on at the time, and considering i was overjoyed to spend the day with him 10 years later, i am very grateful he crashed my pity-party-for-one all those years ago. 

just like in Next Stop Wonderland, it all came down to timing, fate and the right amount of patience.

mb