Couple Goals

Yesterday we came back from 7 wonderful days in the U.K., the vacation I had gifted Highflyer on Christmas 2019. Back then, we had known one another a little more than 4 months and had never actually spent more than 2 nights in a row together. Somehow, though, we both strongly believed that this was "it". What I didn't know was that already that Christmas he briefly toyed with the idea of proposing to me and then hatched the plan to do it in Liverpool or perhaps (discreetly, not as a P.A.) in the plane on the way there. Well, the pandemic had other plans for us, but he went ahead with the proposal in May 2020 anyway and so we did our "Beatles tour" three years later, as a married couple who still gets on so well with each other its's borderline tacky. As a friend once told me when I was unhappy in love (or what I thought it resembled) and tried to make unfit scenarios fit, finding reasons for the object of my desire not writing to me (very stressed at work, alien abduction...the usual): "You'll see. If he's the right one he'll treat you with respect no matter how stressed he is, will respond immediately, be polite and won't play any games." Back then I nodded and didn't want to dwell on this ideal specimen as it was embarrassing to compare this utopia to my sad status quo. She was 100% right of course and I wonder why I was ever willing to settle for any less.