How We Met (or The Convoluted Story of How I'm Becoming a Member of my Best Friend's Family)

Take your mind back, back in time to 1999. What were you doing in the summer 1999? I was about to enter my last year of high school (Grade 13 for me), and I was in an ill-fated online overseas relationship with an Englishman. Round about May or so, my best friend Heather starts talking to me about her nephew, Ryan, who lives in Nova Scotia and is coming down with family for a visit. (Imagine a 23-hour train ride! Goodness.) Heather went so far as to put Ryan on speakerphone once and I got to talk to him. That was neat and very strange.

Turns out Ryan is about a year and a half older than Heather, due to the circumstance of his aunts Heather and Tracy being the fruit of a second marriage on the part of his grandfather. That makes him... about my age.

So anyway, not much happens until June 30, when I meet them downtown and we are introduced, making our way to one of our favourite shops, the Crystal Dawn, and going to McDonalds, where Ryan almost accidently orders extra bacon in his drink. Hilarity ensues, and we make our way back to Orleans to hang and draw and listen to tunes (I seem to recall some Backstreet Boys, even), and then the next day was Canada Day. Heather and Ryan and I went out and watched fireworks and got caught in the rain and came home and watched the first Blade movie. Poor Heather sat between us.

Nothing actually happened, and I went on to visit England on March Break, moved there for three months after graduation, and eventually moved in with my family, who were now in Alberta. Throughout this time, Ryan became a dear friend and we would talk and talk on the phone or on the internet, often about spiritual things, and connected very well. Eventually, Ryan came to visit me in Alberta, before I went back to England as I was planning to do.

I didn't go back to England, and our respective relationships got pretty muddled up. In the end, he and I ended up together in early 2001. Much moving across the country in every which way ensued. I went to college in Ottawa, and now here is where we are settled.

It wasn't all sunshine and roses, of course, but even dandelions are flowers. We're getting married, so who cares about the rest?

(Picture from the Witches Ball 2005)

So what about Ryan and I nowadays?

We have this rapport, and this ability to draw on an extensive repertoire of ridiculousness with which to banter back and forth, which we do, and frequently. Tons of movie references come up, music references, inside jokes... I don't even remember where some of them originated, because they're so ingrained. Any movie we've ever watched together seems to become fair game, which by now amounts to quite a few, and movies like The Matrix, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Big Hit, and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure come up a lot, not to mention any and every movie that Christopher Walken has been in (it's a long list).

I look at our jokes as a huge part of the enjoyment of spending time together. Laughter is important, and I think we bring it out in each other. Life gets so serious, and we know we can count on each other to be there, but also to lighten up. I try to leave my stress at the office, but like most people, that can be difficult, so that first ridiculousness when I see him can be as refreshing as your first cup of coffee in a day.

He likes my cooking, and I like his stories. He does origami and I knit. We both love to read, and are constantly trying to get the other to read the book we just finished. We both love cats. He likes RPGs and I like to draw. Somehow it all seems to come together. Not everything is complimentary, of course, but we do our best, and when that doesn't work, there's still laughter.