It was 1969, downtown Amsterdam, when I saw him there across the square. This feeling, a connection, but who was he? We walked over to each other and it was like time stood still. Breathless and speechless we stared at each other. The smile on his face was a familiar one. It felt like I came home and had known him all my life. I wanted to reach out and grab him, hold him in an embrace. Then I jolted to reality that I had really just met this man. I can’t go embracing strangers. And just like that, words, senseless nervous babble started spilling out of my mouth. At that same moment he burst out into incoherent explanation, apologies. And reflecting on the absurdity of the present situation, we collapsed into giggles.
That was 40 years ago, the day I met my Edward. We’ve been together ever since.
We didn’t know at that moment 40 years ago that this was part of the master plan of things. We were two young lovers, with our lives ahead of us, not knowing where our paths would take us, let alone if they’d be the same path together. What a wonderful thing we had, faith that we were exactly where we were supposed to be at that moment and all our moments together. Over 40 years, that’s a lot of moments!
Every year on our anniversary we travel back to Amsterdam, to that very square we met. Today we can share that embrace because we’ve been able to share so much more. We definitely aren’t strangers anymore, but it’s beautiful that we keep growing and learning new things about each other every day, always.