We talked about our ideal wedding on our third date. That was probably too soon.
"I want a casual wedding," he said, his hands wrapped around a paper coffee cup. "Outside, in the mountains, with bluegrass music."
"Me too," I whispered.
I could see our wedding as I stared into his brown eyes. Me in a flowing gown under a maple tree standing barefoot next to him.
It was our third date. His name was Nik. Against my better judgment, I could feel myself falling for him.
We were at a bustling farmer's market in Washington, D.C. Behind him, a craftsman sold carved wooden butterflies which swayed whimsically from a mobile. A D.J. played music as face-painted children chased each other. Everything seemed so quaint. Yet I had a feeling he wasn't.
I knew that describing his perfect wedding is a common line that men are told to use to get the girl, along with saying his date's name repeatedly in conversation. Whether Nik was playing me or not, I couldn't resist his draw. He could start a fire from twigs and grass. He could do tricks on a snowboard. He had a car. He checked boxes my 26-year-old mind hadn't known existed.
As we left the market together, I felt giddy, the vision of our big day unfurling in my mind. A clear blue sky. A flower crown on my head.
The next month, as fall leaves crunched underfoot, we went camping with friends and slept in the same tent. Deep into the night, as the cold air settled in, he rolled toward me in his sleeping bag and kissed me. Our bags made loud swishing sounds as they crinkled closer. My heart beat double time.
We quickly became inseparable. He taught me how to drive his beat-up Jeep Liberty. On hikes, he pointed out birds. He wowed me with his snowboard tricks, and I learned how to ski.
Then, spring came. As the grass sprouted between sidewalk blocks, so did the first sign that my instincts were right: This was just a situationship.
"I love you and I want to make you happy," he said, "but I'm not sure if we're on the same page."
We were outside my rented rowhouse, sitting on the stoop as the sun set. Neighbors walked past with their dogs, smiling at us. Passers-by always smiled at us. "A cute couple," I'm sure they thought.
"But I love you so much," I pleaded. I wasn't sure if that was true, but I didn't want to let him leave. He looked off, and I knew it was useless to argue.
"I can't talk to you for a while," I said.
"I'll do whatever you need me to do," he said.
The sun slipped behind the buildings as we hugged goodbye.
A week later, he texted: "Hey, I'm getting tickets to this play tonight if you want to come."
I rolled my eyes as I read it. Why was he texting me? Why didn't he find someone else to go? He had said he would give me space. And I hated how casual the text was, as if he didn't care if I went or not.
But I couldn't help thinking of his handsome smile and how he loved rock climbing and poetry.
This can't happen often," I texted back.
In the theater, as the lights dimmed, we inched close. He put his arm around me, and I put my hand on his thigh. Afterward, under the fluorescent sign of the show, we kissed, like two magnets snapping back into place.
Every few months, our coupledom was interrupted, as if by an old cuckoo clock that doesn't quite work and no one can figure out how to turn off. He would say, "I don't think we're on the same page," and I would angrily give him the cold shoulder for a while, go on other dates and try to pretend he didn't exist.
Then he would text me, or I would text him, and we'd go on "just one camping trip," during which he would woo me by mimicking bird songs. Or we'd go to "just one show" and end up home together, after which we would feel close again until the cuckoo bird jumped out of its little house, restarting the cycle.
Years passed. I met his parents. He met mine. We spent holidays and vacations together: Puerto Rico, Chile, Colorado, Chicago.
The love that I wasn't sure about became the kind where you know someone inside and out, where you can pick their order from the menu, read their raised eyebrow, and after a long day, snuggle into them and feel whole.
And yet, the cycle of cuckoo bird to cold shoulder to reuniting to cuckoo bird continued.
One summer, I was at a wedding in the mountains of Colorado without him. As I drank a cocktail on the venue patio and stared at the stoic cliffs dappled with wildflowers, my friend, the bride, approached me. Earlier, I had mentioned to her that I was looking to make a change in my life, to move somewhere.
"We have an extra room in our house," she said,"if you want to move in."
Her invitation came like a shore sighting during a storm. For a second, I stood stunned. Then, my gears began to turn on what I would need to do. I knew I would have a lot to figure out, and it would take time.
"Yes," I said. "I am interested."
When I told Nik about my big plan, he said, "I'm happy for you." His response was deflating, but then he proceeded to help me with everything over the months it took to uproot myself. He helped me buy a car and pack up my house and drove me all the way to Colorado, where he unpacked my car and flew back to D.C.
In Colorado, I began to forge my own course. I bought my own tent. I researched how to identify rock climbing crags in Colorado's creek-lined canyons. I scrambled through roughshod alpine trails to find routes that I wanted to lead. I carried my own gear and relied on my own knowledge. I learned to backcountry ski and navigate the avalanche-prone mountains; accessing untouched powder and spending magical days plodding uphill in snow-globe weather.
I refused to do sports with men.
Instead, I gained a supportive group of women with whom I had hard, honest and productive conversations in the backcountry. I grew confident about what I was and wasn't willing to do in difficult terrain. I stuck to what I said.
I loved my new life in Colorado.
One cold Tuesday evening, I went to a local Denver hangout where a woman was giving Tarot card readings at a rickety table. I scraped the chair back and sat down. She swept her deck up and pulled cards and snapped them into precise position on the table. She began to read the fortune laid in front of her: "You will meet your soul mate within six months."
The room fell silent.
"Your soul mate is someone from your past," she said. "If you find them, you will lead a blissful life of harmony. But if you choose wrong, you will miss your chance at a happy life."
I stared at her, mouth agape. I loved my life. I didn't want or need a soul mate, if there even is such a thing. But I worried about the risk she suggested; if I chose wrong, I would miss my chance at a happy life. That night I scrolled through my contact list for a possible soul mate. I didn't think of Nik. I had closed myself off from that possibility.
But fate, it seemed, had other plans. A month later, Nik texted me out of the blue. He had bought a camper van during the pandemic, left D.C. and spent Covid traveling the country. He was driving through Colorado and wanted to see me.
"You can park your van in front," I replied,"but you can't sleep in my house."
Night had fallen when Nik’s old van rumbled up. A fresh carpet of snow was making the night glitter like a disco ball.
From inside, I heard his car door slam, footsteps and a knock at the door. I opened it slowly. He stood on my front porch with those same brown eyes, but now they seemed calm, humble.
The snow-laden tree branches swayed whimsically over his van parked cockeyed on the unplowed street. It all seemed so quaint. This time, I knew it was.
"You can come in," I said.
"I'm ready," he said.
Two and a half years later, this past June, we got married. Just as we had imagined, our wedding was outside in the mountains under a clear blue sky with a bluegrass band, though I did not, for some reason, wear a crown of flowers.