I met him in an Organic Chemistry laboratory class – we
shared a fume cupboard. He had long,
purple hair with one huge dreadlock in the back, had his nails painted black
and wore a grey lab coat. Everyone else had
a white one. For the first few labs, he
wore a sticker on his lapel that said, “I hate organic chemistry”. He was six weeks past his 21st
birthday; I had six weeks to go until mine.
He barely talked to me for the first semester of
classes. At the time, I figured he
didn’t like me. The truth was that he
was an introvert and rarely made small talk with anyone.
Later that year, he wound up in a night class with a friend
of mine. The class didn’t finish until
nine pm, and he always walked her to her car after class, before heading to the
bus stop himself. She mentioned that
apart from saying, “I’ll walk with you,” each evening after class, he rarely
said much else.
He came back to university the next year, minus the purple
hair and the dreadlock. He’d worked on a
mine site all summer and a haircut had been necessary in the heat and the
dust. He took to sitting on the front
steps of the Chemistry building with a number of us between classes, and over
time, conversations started to happen. Once
he knew you, though he remained quite frugal in his words, he was witty,
sarcastic, cheeky. He had the best
deadpan expression and was extremely convincing, even when telling an outright
lie. He was pretty much always barefoot
– he put his shoes on only for lab classes.
And he wore a lot of different band t-shirts.
By the end of that year, we were sharing a couple of late
afternoon classes. One of these classes featured
multiple guest presenters. Depending on
the presenter, the class was either hugely interesting or tediously
boring. There was no middle ground. Unfortunately for us, there were far more
boring classes than interesting ones. We
sat together, four or five of us in a row.
During the boring lectures, we passed notes backwards and forwards between
ourselves. At some point, he’d
discovered that I loved Fruit Tingles, and he would often buy a pack of them
before a class and pass a note down to me with a Fruit Tingle wrapped in it.
Over the summer break, he went away to work. A few weeks into the break, I got a letter
from him. It was in the same style as
the notes that we used to pass backwards and forwards – random stories, quick
comments, nothing serious. It surprised
me that he’d written to me, but I figured he was a bit bored while working
away.
Once he was back in the city for university, he invited me
to his place to watch The X-Files. He
knew it was my favourite show, and he also knew that I didn’t have a TV of my
own. He also cooked me dinner. Technically, I suppose, that was our first
date, but it took a little longer for us to be officially together. My plan for that year (my Honours year at
uni) was to not have a boyfriend and
to focus on my Honours work. Of course,
making that decision guaranteed that I would definitely find a boyfriend.
And so I did.
Somewhere in the wee hours of New Year’s Eve (probably New
Year’s Day by then . . .), there was a proposal. Actually, calling it a ‘proposal’ is probably
being generous – I said to him, “You should marry me”, and he said, “Ok”. Not long after that, he got a job on a mine
site in the middle of nowhere. It was
what Australians refer to as FIFO – Fly In, Fly Out. In his case, it was a two-hour flight into
the closest airport, followed by a three or four hour drive to the site. He worked four weeks on, two weeks off. His boss was a man my father had known for
years, and the boss wound up employing quite a few of the scientists we knew
over the years. The second time he came
back, we went out and bought an engagement ring. He told me that since I’d proposed, I should
buy him one. I replied that I was quite
happy to, but I wanted a ring too J In the end, we bought just one. My engagement ring never had its own box – I
left the jewellery store wearing it and have rarely taken it off since.
The first person we told was my grandmother, who was in
hospital after an operation. She was a
carrier of the staph infection, so she was in an individual room, and everyone
who visited had to scrub on the way in and out, and wear a gown, gloves and
mask while visiting. My husband loves to
recount the story of the first time I showed someone my engagement ring – by
peeling back the latex glove I was wearing in my Nana’s hospital room.
We were married early the next year, nine days after my 25th
birthday. We bought our first house late
the year after, then moved across the country a year after that, buying house
#2 and selling #1. We lived in Canada
for several years after that, then moved back to Australia in our
mid-thirties. After our eldest daughter
was born, we bought our third house together, and we’ve been here for over
eight years, the longest we’ve ever lived at the same address in all the time
we’ve been together. In my case, prior
to this, I’ve never lived at the same address for eight continuous years.
Over half my lifetime ago, I met this guy. He had a grey lab coat because that was what
his mother bought, not realising that lab coats are usually white. He had a dreadlock, which his mother showed
to our kids last time we visited – she kept it after he had his hair cut all
those years ago. He still likes band
t-shirts and refuses to wear shoes unless it’s absolutely essential. He told me many years later that the reason
he’d barely talked to me in the beginning was not just because he was shy, but
that he’d always thought I was cute and he didn’t really know what to say to me. He still dislikes organic chemistry, and is
more likely to be working in the geology or engineering fields than chemistry
these days. He still doesn’t like making
small talk or meeting new people, but he’s still a cheeky bugger if you know
him well. I can’t remember the last time
he gave me Fruit Tingles, but he still leaves (rude) notes (generally as
“suggestions” on the shopping list or my to-do list for the day) around the
house. He has to be careful where he
leaves these notes now, since our daughters can both read.
After twenty-three years, he still thinks I’m cute, still
likes hanging out with me and is still my best friend. Twenty-three years haven’t changed that. Multiple relocations across the country and
around the world haven’t either. And
neither have the three children we’ve had along the way. Some days (many days) we drive each other
crazy. Some days, we barely have time to
talk to each other. Sometimes, out by
ourselves without children, we purposely sit and enjoy the extreme silence that
comes without children. Especially at a
dinner table. He can still make me laugh
at the stupidest things. He will do
stuff sometimes that is so funny and yet so totally inappropriate (or done at
such an inappropriate time) that it immediately goes on the list of “crazy
stuff my husband says that I can never tell anyone about”.
And out of all of this, please let me tell you the one thing
that I know makes for a good marriage. Be kind.
Because he is a different kind of person to me, my husband has a
different take on this motto. His would
be along the lines of Don’t be an
asshole. Both of these are equally
useful mottos to live by.
