This week marks one full year since Georges and I discovered each other. ONE FULL, GLORIOUS, MIRACULOUS YEAR!!!!!!! (Sorry but that deserved a whole lotta exclamation points.)
It was October 4th of 2007 when he initiated our first Meetic chat session. That evening, a Thursday, we probably chatted for a couple of hours. The next evening, Friday, we chatted again for a long time, and he asked me out. Specifically he asked me if I'd like to meet him for lunch one day "in a public place", and I laughed and suggested Tuesday. We arranged our meeting time and place: 1pm in front of the statue of [insert name of Some Famous French Guy here] in the Place de la Sorbonne.
He had some plans over the weekend so I didn't necessarily expect to chat with him again until perhaps Monday, but we managed to catch each other online at least once over that weekend. OK, I suspect we were both online looking for one another, truth be told, because the conversation was getting very interesting indeed.
By Monday, it had gotten SO interesting that he asked if I couldn't meet him right then and there, but I had some work that day I couldn't get out of. On Tuesday, October 9th, the day of the Big Date, I spent the entire morning NOT working, trying to get ready and be beautiful for him, while he was busy chatting with me and asking if I could please meet him a half-hour sooner because he couldn't wait any longer.
All the while riding on the 89 bus to Luxembourg (the gardens, not the country), I could only observe how totally excited I was to meet this guy -- first time I'd been that excited to meet someone new in over a decade. And also how I was hoping and praying he would at the very least be a really nice guy and someone I could at least enjoy going out with for a while. It had been too many years with little romance and I'd just had enough of feeling like a romance-repellent.
And then. And then.
I've told this story before, but I don't care. I'm going to tell it again because I love reliving it. As the bus pulled up to the stop, I looked out through the doors and there he was, just as he'd looked in his photo and wearing the jacket he'd described. He wasn't supposed to be THERE, I thought... he was supposed to be a 3 minute walk from there in front of that statue.
I remember feeling like a magnet was pulling me toward him, as if I was floating as I stepped of the bus in my little zebra ballet flats. We were very proper, exchanging the usual two-cheek French bise, but it was slow and more intimate in its own way than if we'd lunged at each other like animals. I remember how he smelled, how his cheek felt next to mine, and that I had unthinkingly placed my hand on his chest as I leaned in.
We smiled, exchanged some words I can't quite recall because I couldn't think straight; I think I even said as much, that my brain wasn't working, that I couldn't get over that he was waiting for me right there. He tucked my hand in his arm and we walked into the gardens. We passed the beautiful Medici fountain, heading in the direction of the Senat building en route across the park to an outdoor restaurant he knew, and it was such nice weather for October (not at all like it is today, cold and rainy) that dining outdoors seemed the only logical thing to do on a date in Paris.
It was just in front of the Senat. He stopped, turned me toward him, and kissed me, full on the lips. I remember being a little startled that he would kiss me so quickly, and like that, and then being even more startled that I didn't seem to mind him kissing me like that. Uh-oh, I thought... this might really BE something.
The rest of the afternoon was spent kissing, holding hands, staring into each other's eyes, talking over a half-eaten lunch we can't remember anything about other than not eating it, more kissing, then forcing ourselves to part because I had to go back home for a phone conference with a client. At the time, I felt I also needed the break to regain my equilibrium, because although it's cliché to say it, he completely swept me off my feet. So I went back home on the 89 bus, and he went back to his office to not work. I still have the text message he sent me while I floated home on that bus. How I managed to conduct that conference call coherently, I'll never know.
A few hours later, we were having dinner. He'd suggested it earlier but I'd made some lame excuse, only to realize I really WANTED to see him again. So we met for dinner at Abbesses. I think I had fish, because it was a restaurant specializing in seafood, but otherwise I could tell you nothing about the meal. More kissing afterwards, outside standing under an awning in the pouring rain. Some time after that... breakfast.
Five days later, I was meeting his children, which sounds fast but the way it happened was actually very casual and unscripted, very natural and easy, nothing forced. And later that evening after having met them all, after seeing where he lived and realizing he trusted me enough already to trust me with the three most precious people in his life, and after letting it sink in what might be was happening between us, I cried in his arms because right then and there...
I knew.
And so did he. It was the Week That Changed Everything.
Happy Anniversary Week to my darling, amazing, and boldly loving Georges. Je t'aime, mon coeur.