You're the one

I watched a movie today, one of those indie flicks where the ending makes you say, "Buh? Why did I watch this?" In the course of watching it, however, the flick brought up an issue that sometimes pops into my head.

When do you know that the person you are with is "the one"?

I've been with Phil for almost 15 years. We have been married for over 10 years. We met when I was 19, which now seems very, very young. At the time? I thought I was 119. He appeared quite suddenly in the midst of of several break-ups I had with two fellows. One, my high school boyfriend. The other, a long-term, off-and-on letter writing campaign that started as a boyfriend in the 4th grade. Neither turned out well. Smashingly awful, in fact. The effect of these break-ups was that I hated all men. I'd been jacked around and screwed with, and I just wasn't going to take it anymore. Suddenly I had standards. Suddenly, I had put my foot down.

Then Phil showed up.

In the movie, a fellow asks his father a question. "Was it an instant thing or a gradual realization that Mom was the one?"

Which is it, really? The father said that they were at a wedding. The wedded couple was, in the father's opinion, a collection of dolts. He casually mentioned to his girlfriend at the time, "They are idiots. If anyone should be married, it should be us." His girlfriend took it as a proposal, and it just grew from there. So, in this movie, I guess the answer is that there isn't an answer.

I asked Phil the same question about me. When was I "the one"?

He said it must have been gradual. I grew upon him like fungus on a shower. Yes, that's Phil version of love talk. The thing is, my answer wouldn't have been much different. There was no lightening in a bottle. No love at first sight. I just knew that when I saw this long-haired freak who started working at my job, that he was kind of cool and different. I began to park on the same side of the building that he did. I began to eat lunch outside where he did, near the smoking, old hacks and dried up military guys who had lost all hope. There we were, two young people courting outside of a nondescript building on the northwest side of San Antonio and just seeing how it would play out.

I even brought my friend Allison by one day to scope him out. We ate lunch on the back of my dad's Isuzu Trooper with the doors open. Phil walked over to his car to supposedly put his Tupperware away after eating his lunch. He said, "Hello, ladies. Are you having lunch out on the veranda?"

Veranda. The man said veranda. He totally, completely had me at veranda.

Was that the instant? Did I have visions of wedding dresses and babies in overalls? No. I just quietly and hopefully felt a spark. A jumpstart to a heart that had darkened considerably.

Not much later, Phil asked me out on a date. It was a day when my glasses had fallen apart at work, and my sister had to come by to deliver my old glasses. The old glasses that made me look like a leathery, old librarian who only shops at the dollar store. And still, Phil looked past that (or because of that), and asked me out that day. He melted my icy innards.

We laughed so hard on that first date. And the next day. And the next. And when he was kicked out of his living quarters, we still managed to chuckle. We drove across the country together, and still belly-laughed our way through the states. We had passionate, crazy, laugh-filled sex everywhere, and it never seemed like there should be an end to it.

So, when was he "the one"? He just was. I don't have an instant moment to point toward if Amos ever asks that question. Was it when we talked about ants? Was it when I said, "Parts is parts," and he laughed so hard? Was it when he said, "I'm not good with compliments, but you are fabulous"?

It was all. Love isn't like fairytales.

It's better.