More of the past; Love at first sight.

I have never found it easy to write from the heart; it relies too much on the courage to delve deep into your psyche, to face your vulnerabilities and expose them to the world.

Some years ago as a mature age uni student I had to write a personal reflective assignment for one of my first year units, Communication and Case Studies. The premise was that engineers don’t communicate well and so all budding first year engineering students had to maintain a journal for a semester, not writing anything useful – nothing technical or valuable, just reflecting on their emotions and feelings as a first year student.

I commenced mine with the proposition that “men of my age don’t have feelings” and wrote quite a few pages expounding on this hypothesis. No way was I mentally prepared to become a SNAG (sensitive new age guy). I studiously avoided any reference to thoughts and emotions and in spite of this, or just possibly because of this, I attained a distinction for my efforts.

Now a little older, I realise it is time to try again , reflecting on life, love and happiness. If a man is lucky he has two great enduring loves of his life, one is his wife and the other is his mistress. A wife is forever and though his time with his mistress may be short and bitter sweet, nevertheless she will always remain an important part of his life.

At the grand old age of nineteen, I first discovered love; something that I hadn’t ever known was missing in my life. After working in the bush for a couple of years, I went to Brisbane for a short holiday and met a stunning young lady who took my breath away. She wore a yellow blouse with a small giraffe embroided on the left breast, a tailored black skirt and was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.  Wide brown eyes, a mop of curly hair; I was in love! Totally gone. Our first date was with a couple of her girl friends in tow as chaperones. Obviously hopeless romantics, we went to see Rocky IV. Not too sure what it was about. I can no longer remember how but we managed to ditch our chaperones somewhere early in the evening and ended up at King George Square.  Nineteen eighties King George Square was light years away from the grubby concrete expanses of today, it was a parklike oasis in the heart of the city with plenty of quiet seclude spots for young lovers to while away the evening.

Michelle Stradbroke Island 1980

I wouldn’t call it a whirlwind romance; a whirlwind has connotations of frenetic wasted energy, rather it was an instant connection of the heart. For the first time in my life I bought jewellery, a silver chain and a small white gold heart with a diamond in the centre. Her parents were definitely not impressed.

Five days later I asked Michelle to marry me. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind that we were meant to be together. We kept it quiet for all of two days while I bought a diamond solitaire engagement ring and publicly announced our engagement on April fools day.  For some strange reason, nobody seemed to believe us – stunned silence would have to be an understatement.  The hardest part was ringing the girl that I had been going out with only a week earlier and telling her I was engaged. I may be mistaken but I got the distinct impression she may have been just a little miffed.

We were engaged for just over twelve months maintaining a true platonic relationship until we were married. Looking back their seems to be no good reason why we waited but at the time it was important to Michelle and if you really love someone, you accept, however reluctantly, their decision. I was also living over a thousand kilometres away, which made it a little easier, though for some strange reason I acquired a life long aversion to cold showers.

Getting married 1981

In over thirty years the passion has never dimmed, the flame has never flickered. Michelle has been my greatest strength and my ultimate weakness, my soul mate and lover as we journey through life, hand in hand.

And I must not forget the mistress – lets just say she was four years older than me, a dignified American lady of impeccable breeding. No one will ever describe her as beautiful; she was already long obsolete by the time she left Lock Haven, Pennsylvania in 1956, a stubby little tube and fabric aeroplane born into a world of streamlined polished aluminium, a deafeningly noisy relic of an earlier time, but she flew like a homesick angel and kept my young family safe in the air for many years - but that is another story for another time.   

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.