On this day 14 years ago, DeepSpice and I were just young, foolish, idealistic lefties, mucking about together at my sharehouse in Helen St, Northcote. It was August 21st, 1995 and one week after the La Trobe Uni student protest when we occupied the administration building for a couple of hours. DeepSpice and I were sitting on FreeloadingPhill's sofabed (which I should point out he obtained for free from his grandmother's estate... he was a freeloader even back in those days) watching TV, when the magic began.
Actually the magic really began two years earlier in 1993, after I asked DeepSpice to help me with a Music assignment. With about 3 hours until the assignment was due, I went to his room at college and demanded his help because he had done the same Music subject the previous year and I didn't like the subject anyway, so just wanted to get through it as quickly as possible. I should point out that in the end, DeepSpice was no help, as (a) he couldn't find his old assignment, (b) he was hung-over and still asleep at midday, and (c) he failed first year entirely. Anyway, this non-musical interlude led on to an increased degree of 'hanging out' together. Until, a few weeks into our fledging 'thing', I got glandular fever and was sick for about 5 weeks. Then life just sort of moved on. I got caught up in all the bigger, better things to do as a second-year uni student, and although I stayed friends with DeepSpice, I held back on getting too involved with him, lest a serious relationship interfere with all the other possibilities that are open to a second-year uni student!Anyway, two years on and there we were, somehow both in the right place at the right time, unencumbered by romantic commitments to other people (DeepSpice more recently so than I, having just been dumped by someone about a week before). And the rest, as 'they' say, is history.
Also on this day 5 years ago, DeepSpice and I had a wedding ceremony with about 100 of our nearest and dearest family and friends. I should point out that we chose not to get married (much to StompyDad's disapproval) because we didn't see the need. We are both atheists, and we didn't see any reason for a civil marriage either: we already had a sizable home loan together which we considered was enough evidence of our commitment to each other. What we wanted was to celebrate our (then 9-year) relationship, and to ensure that all of our relatives understood that we were in a relationship for life, and not that we were just the boyfriend/girlfriend of the moment. (It gets really annoying after 9 years, when extended family invite one of us to a family-do, like a wedding, but not invite the other because they just didn't remember/recognise our relationship). Oh, and we wanted to have a party, of course! And by cleverly scheduling our wedding on the August 21st, we ensured that we wouldn't have two different dates to remember.
So anyway, we did the wedding thing, and although there were quite a lot of good things that happened in the course of the big event, I can honestly say that I would never, ever do such a thing again. It became a Frankenstein's Monster, turning into something that was completely not what we wanted. It seems that as soon as one ascribes the word 'wedding' to an event, it becomes loaded with generations of social meaning, layered with ritual and is quickly taken over by others, who are eager to relive (or perhaps re-enact) their own weddings... and this time they get to do so from the position of being the ones to slather-on the meaning and ritual, rather than being the ones subjected to it! (I guess if BallFiend or Thumper ever have a wedding, DeepSpice and I will have the chance to get our own back! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!)
The choice of date didn't really work out so well either - despite organising our wedding for the date of our relationship's anniversary, I still get mixed up anyway and think that our anniversary is August 15th. I am also hopeless at remembering how many years it has been. Thereby putting an end to the idea that it is always the male in a relationship who forgets the anniversary.
However, all that really matters is that DeepSpice and I are still happily and lovingly together after all these years, In addition, we have spawned progeny, thereby contining the over-population of the planet... and that should make those religious freaks happy. And even if it doesn't who cares! We are happy... BallFiend is a delight -- more so every day as he develops -- and I am sure that Thumper will be too. I just hope that this time next year, we are dining out somewhere special, with a nice bottle of plonk on the table and the kids safely home with a babysitter!
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