Weddingbee

A New Beginning?

At that point in my life, I was riding high. I was a manager at Jamba Juice, I was free-wheelin’ and single, and had some great friends. All of whom would constantly badger me about my stupidity when dealing with Mr. Kiwi- making him leave his job and all that. To celebrate my new freedom, I decided to get a tattoo. Here we go with that stupid young person thing again, right? Well, I had a deep adoration for ladybugs (still do), and had one tattooed on my back right side. This was about three weeks after we broke up, and I hadn’t seen him for awhile, had almost put him out of my mind. Until…

My friends and I were out celebrating the event right after it took place, and we decided to go to Islands for dinner. Since it was the Saturday evening rush, we had to wait outside for a table, my friends armed with their video camera to document the first tattoo amongst us. As we were sitting there, my attention was focused on my back, when I heard, “Welllllll, look who’s here! Miss Kiwi, it’s MR. KIWI!” Yep. He had headed to Islands with his sister and brother in law. And there I was. And there he was. All on tape. Could you say awkward? We traded a few words, some of which were “So you got that tattoo you wanted?”, “yep”. “Awesome.”. “Yep”.

He went inside to meet his family, and I sat on the bench and had multiple heart attacks. All throughout dinner it was the talk of the night, how it was just FATE he’d show up like that. As any self respecting dumper would do, I ignored it, and tried to go on with my life.

Fast forward a couple of years (about 5 and a half).. Natalie and I are no longer friends, I’m now working as a bookkeeper, and Mr. Kiwi is who-knows-where. Aside from a few VERY random sightings, we had managed to completely lose each other amongst the rest of the Los Angelenos. There was the one time I called his house to find that he had moved out, and when his brother gave me the new number, it was disconnected. I called the old house to get the right number, and whaddya know? Disconnected. It was all okay anyway, as I was just calling to see how he was, since my feeble mind had wondered what I had done to him. (Cue eyeroll, I WAS that conceited).

Anyway, life changes and so do people. Over the years between our break up and our reunion, I had searched for him. I had had my share of the bad boys, and wanted to see what the only good guy I had ever dated was doing. Was he married? Did he have kids? Did he still live here? What would I say to him if I did see him? After years of signing up for Classmates.com (where they SPAM you constantly after signing up), Reunions.com, searching on Yahoo, Friendster and Myspace… I got a hit.

Friendster had him, and I sent him a message via their messaging service. As I checked out all the ladies who were his friends, I contemplated the message I sent him. I vaguely remember, “Hi Mr. Kiwi, it’s Miss Kiwi here. I don’t know if you remember me or not (I kinda hope you don’t), but I was just seeing how you were doing, and I hope you are doing well.”

I sat with bated breath for days (Mr. Kiwi STILL takes forever to respond to emails), until the response came back. It went something like, “Ha, of course I remember you. I’m doing good (AH, it’s WELL), and you?”. All those days of nervous fretting, and that’s what comes back? And what’s with the “ha”? Is he laughing because I’m a terrible person? Anyway, we traded emails for a few days, and it turned out he signed up for Friendster two weeks before I looked for him again. It’s FATE! After the initial few emails, we started chatting on the phone again. And then made a date for November 1, 2003. Almost exactly 6 years after our first real date, we were dating again.

Things quickly became serious, and after just one incident of eating mustard when I hated it, I let my neuroses show. I was the real me, and this time he was also less tolerant of my crap. He even let our (second) first date be with a particularly unpleasant friend (at the time, not any longer) of mine. He STILL didn’t judge me by that terrible date, and agreed to see me again, one on one. This time, our first movie together was “Love Actually”, and it was perfect.

Sure, I actually questioned myself about my feelings, I was worried I was just dating him because I didn’t want to hurt him again. I was confused about what was happening. How is it possible to dislike someone so much earlier in your life, and then all of a sudden find them perfect for you? I was worried that didn’t happen in real life, and wondered how was it possible that this was a second chance.

Mr. Kiwi must get some major respect, because how many people would give a person like me (Jamba Kiwi, not bookkeeper Kiwi), a second chance knowing it could happen again? After a few months I stopped apologizing, his friends stopped giving me the suspicious side-eye, and I met his family. A year after our new first date, we moved in together. In March of 2006, we got engaged.

And the rest isn’t history, it’s the future.

P.S. Even though Natalie and I are no longer friends, I did email her when we got engaged. Despite the loss of our friendship, I did get a “What the hell! Congrats! And I told you so.”

• One Lucky Day, Con’...
• Rules of Engagement