I took this photo of Katy on our three year anniversary in Tulum where we'll be married this coming May. Things have been on an upward track since the day we met, and almost daily it seems like things continue to get better.
The Story of Us
It was summer. We had only just met and began to talk on my patio with friends in Whistler. The two of us were bundled up in jackets sitting across from each other. It doesn't feel like an August you have in other places. The air seems to hold less heat during the days and nights cool quickly as summer winds down. Shortly after August the town empties out and all the visitors leave until the snow falls. I met Katy just before she left.
On the patio, I poured some whisky to warm us up. She pretended to like it. We talked for hours about nothing. Whisky soaked talk of my favourite musicians and dreams of moving to the Caribbean, all said through a wall of cigar smoke. I figure Katy also pretended to like cigars. The girl humoured me and noted that moving to the Caribbean sounded nice, "One day I'll move there too and look you up," she said.
That was all small talk. Katy had left back to Vancouver and I was still living in Whistler. I had to find her.
The next time we saw each other was at a live show in Vancouver where Dan Mangan, one of the artists we talked about, performed. I bought two tickets and told her a group of us were going. They were, but no one showed. What was a group get together now had the sneaky undertone of a date. I told her it wasn't a ploy. I don't think she pretended to believe that.
The visits increased, we saw each other more and spent every moment we had together. It was all small talk, then it wasn't. More than three years have gone by and now the "See you when you get there," line of the Caribbean is our reality. We live together on the Caribbean Sea, sail, swim, fish and hang out twenty-four hours a day. Our lives have never been better, and I cannot be more grateful that a patio conversation with a stranger wound up to be a life imagined.
