A few good men.

<insert schmaltzy but serious post here>

Today is one of my bestie’s, aka, Sheena‘s two year anniversary with the fantastic Jon.

Upon waking this morning, after calling my Shmooshy and waking him up as he wanted me to (*heart*), I was alerted to the fact that Jon woke Sheena up this morning with coffee and beautiful flowers. Having just had me and the Shmoo’s 20 months, I’m all hearts and flowers myself. In fact, scrap that, for just over 20 months, I have been all hearts and flowers myself. Sheena has been for just over two years.

That brings up some perspective. Some very serious, very life-changing perspective. You see, I have some favourite love stories. My all time headline top one is that of my friends, Angel and Glugster. I know Sheena will agree with me that, this one, is a love story that inspired us on the days when we both thought, for a long time, that love – real, enduring, curl your toes and soothe your soul all the way through, love, was beyond us.

You see, when Sheena and I lived together (in our much younger, less schmaltzy days :P), we would often discuss the topic of love. Of how we’d both been led into love, led out of love, and how we had both made some absolute mind-boggling errors in supposed love. Sheena saw me a through an ultimate heartbreak, that ended up with me realising more about myself, and led me to realising some life dreams. Were it not for that heartbreak, I would not be who or where I am today. Were it not for that heartbreak, and all of them that went before, I would not know or have the love I have today. And I have it, in abundance.

Here’s the thing, though. Sheena and I would talk of love often. Daily, in fact. We’d laugh over our follies, muddle through our sometimes lack of faith that it existed for us in the future, and resolved to just marry each other if noone worthy ever showed up on our doorstep.

Oh. How. Wrong. We. Were.  

The thing about love, real love, is that it is almost always unexpected. Sheena did not expect that, one day – in the not too distant future, she’d be taking  a road trip home to her mama and fall in love on the way. I did not expect that, one day – in the same not too distant future, I’d be coming home from a trip to Cape Town and have someone waiting for me. I did not expect at all, that he’d get down on one knee and give me a post-it note that would change my life entirely.

We expected none of this love.

And, in there, I guess is the life lesson. When living without expectation, great things happen. You see, we’d always been told that, but we never really thought we were entirely worthy of it. Instead, we preferred to laugh at our own (and each other’s!) mistakes, and try and fathom our way towards a life that was without that great love story.

Today, though, we look back and we email each other and laugh. We marvel at how our mood swings get dealt with by our significant others, we laugh at the notion that we have significant others and how it’s not a weird cosmic joke that they’re really ours to love.  We share our cute stories of things they’ve done, and marvel at our stupendous luck. Our extreme joy.

There was a time in our lives when we felt let down, disappointed, and eager to cover up our hurts with a flippant “I’m fine”. There was a time in our lives when we’d pretend we were the poster girls for Surviving Singledom – we’d watch Bridget Jones over and over again for inspiration, and commiserate over the rather apt resonations of ourselves on the screen.

There was a time in our lives when we believed that love was for other people. Today, we both know that love…our love that we’ve been so incredibly blessed with, is for us.

Happy Anniversary Sheena and Jon.

(and Jon, apologies for my heinous hair and screeching nature when we met the very first time in my driveway. I promise I’m sane).

(and Shmooshy, I love you like there are not limericks enough)

<3