Boy Meets Girl. Many Years Go By.

The topic du jour at the hairdresser’s today was the You Tube sensation posted by the guy who arranged a Flash Mob (or now apparently it’s called a Lip Dub?) to help him propose to his girlfriend. Everyone at the salon was talking about it. The Young Thing getting a pedicure next to me thought it was the most romantic thing she had ever seen.

Maybe you were one of the 5 million people who viewed the video. If not, you can find it on You Tube —it’s called “Isaac’s Marriage Proposal.”  Isaac, the guy, gets his friends and family to participate in a dance routine to “Marry You,” sung by Bruno Mars (I know – Who? I had to look it up. I wouldn’t have known the song either.) The girlfriend listens on headphones. Needless to say, he pops the question and she says yes. The couple made it to the Today Show early this week. They were all giggly. It was very sweet.

But that’s like all the romantic movies, isn’t it? That’s like Jane Austen books. Guy and Girl meet. Guy and Girl think they are in love. Guy and Girl split up for some reason but then it dawns on them that they really are in love. Guy pursues Girl or vice versa and the movie or book concludes with Guy proposing to Girl. Happily ever after.

Sometimes we’ll get a sequel – like Shrek III. But mostly the “romance” ends at the proposal.

Really?

Ken and I celebrated our 35^th wedding anniversary this week. (May 28, 1977) It got me thinking about our romance.

We were married in the Chapel at the University of Winnipeg, which is where we met. We first eyed each other in first year Biology class. We often tell people that we met while “studying” the human reproductive system. Ha Ha!  “Studying” is the euphemism there because we weren’t exactly doing scholarly work —it was a survey course we needed as a science credit for our Arts degrees. You thought I meant…well, never mind!

Our first date was New Year's Eve, 1971. (Really romantic!) We dated for 5 ½ years. We finished undergrad together, then Ken did graduate studies in Theatre at Michigan State and I went into Interior Design at University of Manitoba.  That was our Guy and Girl splitting up bit. Except we were still “going steady” and talked to each other on the phone late almost every night. We had grown so comfortable with each other over time that when Ken had his masters’ and was back home in Winnipeg, it was just all like, “O.K., when do you think we should get married?” In those days, no one did marriage proposals in flash mobs or lip dubs that go viral on You Tube. That wouldn’t have been our style anyway. I think we were in the car on a Sunday afternoon in August driving to my parent’s cottage when this question came up. In the next breath we were talking about buying pots and pans and picking a date in May.

Ken got work for a year in theatres in Edmonton and Calgary and I planned to finish my fourth year in Interior Design. When May rolled around, neither of us had a job. My wedding dress cost $100. His suit didn’t cost much more. The sum total of worldly goods we owned were our wedding rings, a stereo and speakers, Ken’s guitar, the wedding gifts and a Fiat Sport Coupe with a leaky windshield. Our honeymoon was at my parents’ cottage. We moved into their house in July. They moved to an apartment and put the house on the market. Friends came over. We ate a lot of spaghetti. We drove the leaky Fiat in a rain storm to Calgary to look for work.  It was a wonderful summer.

By October, we both had jobs. We got a one bedroom apartment. Ken worked nights at Manitoba Theatre Centre and I worked days at the Hudson Bay Company store planning office. We saw each other on Sundays.

Thirty-five years later. Sunday is still our day for being together. We’ve been through the whole bit: good times and bad. Sickness and health. Richer and poorer. Tears and laughter. We still love a road trip. We’ve lived together in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, Buffalo, and now Dayton is home. We still have most of our wedding gifts. We are so fortunate to have a lovely house, Ken’s fabulous job, our brave Golden Retriever and each other. We’re still in love 35 years later.

I wish Isaac and his girl much happiness; the proposal is just the beginning of their journey. Because I was thinking to myself as I watched the video: "You want to hear romantic? Try being married for 35 years!" And still hoping we will be granted another 35 or more. Now THAT'S romantic!