Ladies and Gentlemen, May I Introduce...

The following post originally appeared here on 19th September 2007

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen, May I Introduce...

She was the daughter of the foreman, just out of university. He had given her (and her friends) summer jobs as “lollypop ladies” – stop/go sign attendants on a railway crossing we were working on. The first thing I noticed about her were her legs. She wore shiny black leggings, and they made her legs ~ and her bum! ~ look great. It was a week or so before I got to talk to her for the first time. She took of her sunglasses, and revealed her eyes… I’d seen eyes like that before, and I even had a name for them: Spanish Eyes. So brown they were almost black: Dark pools of mystery, expressive and fiery (I was most amused to find some years later, that Bruce Springsteen had also come to the same conclusion – an outtake from his Darkness On The Edge of Town album is a track called “Spanish Eyes”, a wonderful “Here Comes The Night” by Them sound-alike). They flashed at me from behind her cascading brown hair. I was in love.

The timing was exquisite. I walked into our office a couple of Mondays later, and described the running around I had done for my then girlfriend, who lived out of town. Running around I had been doing for months, but had just not found the courage or the occasion to say “enough” to. The boss’s secretary looked me squarely in the eyes, and told me I was mad, and that I could do so much better. It was all I needed. The first phone call I made that evening was to my girlfriend, telling her I would meet up with her on Saturday. The second was to the dark eyed beauty, asking her out on Friday night. She accepted. The stage was set.

Friday night was like a blur. Dinner was amazing. I felt like a shroud had been lifted from me. Here was a woman who shared so many of my thoughts and ideas, but was prepared to challenge me and speak her mind when we were not in synchronization. For two years, I had been sinking into a relationship where my partner was a blancmange, where she did not want to do the thinking, and every decision, big or small, was mine. What at first seemed a perfect foil for my larger-than-life personality had become stale and unchallenging, and ultimately unrewarding. It was a revelation, and an amazing feeling of meeting a woman I did not feel I was talking down to, but who was my equal, who I could share any aspect of my life with. With a soft kiss on her cheek, I dropped her home around 2am, and drove home for a short sleep before heading out of the city for the messier of my two engagements that weekend.

Blindsiding someone with the end of a relationship is not pleasant. I took the blame, although I knew my decision was a reaction, not an action. There were tears, and I felt like shit, but at the end of the day, it was something I had been needing to do for six months. It took an outsider to spell out how terminal we were. But I awoke on Sunday morning, a single man.

And the dark-eyed beauty? Well after more than a little pursuing, she became Lady Mountjoy, of course! Our first date was about a dozen years ago now, but ten years ago tomorrow, that wonderfully smart, good looking, and confident woman became Mrs. Mountjoy, my companion, my best friend, and mother to our three wonderful children. She brings out the best in me, and I am a better person because of her. I love you, darling.