Don and I had been dating for about three weeks. By that, I mean that we'd had about three actual "dates"....the kind where we'd make formal plans to get together. At the same time, though, we saw one another daily. We would sit together for noonday worship at seminary, chat over lunch, and meet again for compline in the evening, after which he would walk me back to my apartment. I couldn't tell you how many hours we'd spent together during those three weeks.
I had offered to fix dinner for Don's birthday, which is on December 8. It was a Wednesday evening that year. For a variety of reasons, we ended up setting up our dinner date on Sunday evening, December 12.
Confession time: By that point, I'd become a bit anxious and frustrated. I was deeply attracted to my now-husband and he seemed to return my interest. Aside from hugging (always at the end of a date), though, Don had made no open show of affection for me. And dang it, I wanted a kiss!
Both of us like movie musicals so, in advance of the date, I'd rented My Fair Lady from the local Blockbuster store. We had raviolis for dinner. I'd also baked him a birthday cake--devil's food with Funfetti icing. (It's fun for me to remember the details!)
Back in ye olden days, movies like My Fair Lady were on VHS tapes, not DVDs. And that particular movie was long enough to require two cassettes, the first of which ended at the movie's intermission. During the break, I made a trip to the restroom, while Don made himself at home grabbing a drink from my kitchen. We both walked back into my living room at the same time and, as we did, he reached out for a hug offering me the reassurance, "I'm not getting ready to leave, I just really wanted to hug you."
I took advantage of the moment and snagged a kiss, as well....and we walked to the sofa, snuggled in together and spent the rest of the evening kissing and talking. I ended up returning the movie, with the second tape completely unwatched.
It's a happy memory!
1 comments:
I once heard a marriage counselor on the radio talking about fixing broken relationships. And one thing he was very strongly insistent about is having couples who were in a bad way starting over with just talking for awhile, maybe weeks, and progressing to holding hands, then to hugging, etc. then eventually to kissing, nothing more, for awhile. You can see where this is going. He advocated building the relationship in a slow way physically while building the other aspects along with the physical or ahead of the physical. Not quite the way it is advocated in far too many movies, I'm afraid.
I am strongly in favor of this, and my husband and I were probably on a slower path than you guy were.
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