It's Me, Sara Louise

[2010]

(This is the third installment in my very own, ‘How I Met Your Mother’ episode, except it’s father, not mother,and actually only husband, not father yet, unless I’m telling this story to Fifty, in which case I guess this is, ‘How I Met Your Father’. You can find part one here, followed by part two here)

There I was, coat and purse slung over my arm, frazzled, irritated, and trying to make my way out of the crowded nightclub. And there he was, tall, blonde, tanned, broad shouldered, definitely not Irish, and walking straight for me.

We stopped about foot away and stared at each other for a few seconds. Then, in heavily accented English, he spoke. “I am Gregory” he said,  except it sounded like, “I am Gwegowy.” I smiled and nodded and asked him where he was from. “I am Fwench.” OK. I asked him if he wanted to go to the bar and get a drink, but due to the loud music and Gregory only knowing how to say about two things in English (I am Gregory. I am French), there was a great deal of miming and pointing involved. Eventually he copped on.

sidebar: I’m inserting this sidebar now after writing the rest of the post because I think that it is important to note a couple of things… First, from the moment I met Gregory, I knew he was ‘it’. It’s not like there were shooting stars and stuff, it was a feeling, like a feeling of calm, and just knowing. It was as if I had been waiting to exhale for a very long time and finally could. And second, I always thought that that moment when we walked towards each other was the first time Gregory had seen me (it was the first time I had seen him) but I found out after moving to France, that he had spotted me a few times earlier that night. So I’m pretty sure (although he refuses to admit it) that he saw me leaving, and finally took his chance. Stalker.  

It didn’t take us long to figure out that trying to have a conversation was basically impossible, so I left my coat and purse with my coworkers (lots of smiling and winking from their end), and we moved to the dance floor. This is when I found out that Gregory is a horrible dancer. I tried to find away to talk instead (anything to make the dancing stop). It turned out that some of his French friends were on the dance floor also, and could speak English, so Gregory recruited Alex as our translator.

I found out that Gregory had only arrived three days before and had come to Ireland to learn English. I was pretty sure that I could help him with that so I put my number in his phone and asked Alex to tell him that I was going to head home, but if he ever wanted to go for a bite to eat or a drink or something he should text me (a phone call would have been damn near impossible at this point… in fact, we were dating about six weeks before we had our first actual phone conversation). Alex told Gregory what I said, he looked at me, said OK and followed me out of the club. I didn’t mean go out for a bite to eat right at that moment, but it didn’t really matter (the first of many, many lost in translation moments).

So that’s how we found ourselves on our first date, eating burgers and fries at a little place around the corner at 1AM, about an hour after we met. And then two days shy of ten months later, I was on a plane bound for France and my new life in Le Petit Village.

[2009]

So when we last left our story (in case you’re only joining us now, the story is the story of how I met The Husband), I had left my coworkers at Dicey Reilly’s and was headed over to my brother’s apartment to have a drink with his girlfriend.

We had a glass of wine, chatted and contemplated going out. The more she thought about it, the more she was adamant that she was staying put for the night. But the more I thought about it, the more of a niggling feeling about returning to the work party I had left behind crept up on me. (I don’t why. It’s not like I was under any obligation to be there, except for the fingers-crossed promise I had made). My mind was set though, I was going back.

sidebar: I don’t think I can emphasize enough how odd this behavior was for me. I had left a works drink thing behind (a works drink thing that I never really intended to go to in the first place), taken a five minute taxi over to my brother’s apartment, where I was curled up all cozy like on a comfy couch, sipping wine and indulging in some great girl chatter, and yet I had decided to leave and return to the works drink thing. That is definitely some out of character behavior for Sara Louise.

When I got back to the bar, I found that my coworkers had moved from the upstairs beer garden, to the downstairs nightclub, Krystle. Krystle was not, and is not, my cup of tea so as soon as I arrived, I figured one drink, maybe two, and them home to my bed.

There I was, trying to be social and chatty, which meant shouting over the loud thumping music, smiling and nodding, and pretending that I could hear whatever conversation was being screamed into my ear. Long story short, I wasn’t having a good time, and was regretting leaving the comfy couch at my brother’s apartment. And when some drunk girl knocked over my drink, splashing it all over my jeans, and then didn’t bother apologising or offer to replace it, I knew it was time to go.

And that’s when it happened.

I was walking towards the door, my head bent down, trying to make my way through the crowd, when I looked up and saw him. He was headed straight for me.

[2008]

Today is my third wedding anniversary and as it is, I feel like the time has finally come to tell you the story of how The Husband became The Husband, as in, how I met a French boy named Gregory and followed him back to France. I need to warn you though, this won’t be any wham, bam, thank you ma’am kind of post. This is going to be a long one, because how we met was kismet, and since you can’t rush kismet, I have to tell you all of it, all of the itty bitty gritty details, because the kismet was in the details. So this will be part one, of an as yet to be determined number of parts.

It was Friday the 28th of November, 2008. Because it was a Friday I was working, but because I had a butt load of vacation days left to take before the end of the year, I took a half day to do some Christmas shopping. As I was walking out of the office, my coworkers reminded me that there was a drink thing that night at Dicey’s (there was always an after work drinks thing). I told them that I would see them there, but inside I was pretty sure I wouldn’t. The last thing I wanted to do after an afternoon of shopping would be to turn around and head right back into town. No, it was definitely a Chinese takeaway/ DVD/ bottle of wine kind of night.

So why then a little after 7PM did I find myself sitting in traffic heading back into town? The answer is kismet. Here’s the thing, not only was I headed back into town, which was basically something I never did (if I was already out that was one thing, but to go home after work and then go back out, no way. That’s what Saturdays were for) plus, it was raining. All signs normally pointed to staying in. Clearly Mr. Destiny had other ideas because unbeknownst to me at the time, there was a French boy who had moved to Dublin only three days before, just waiting to meet me. Only he didn’t know it yet either.

I arrived at Dicey Reilly’s beer garden and met up with everybody. They were already two hours into pints and Jägerbombs… not the best for conversation and it didn’t take me long to remember why I didn’t really enjoy these things. And then I got a text. It was from my brother’s girlfriend. She was asking me if I wanted to pop over for a drink. Me being on Harcourt Street and her being not too far away at their apartment on Pembroke, I decided to abandon my coworkers, and skedaddled on over to Ballsbridge (that’s where Pembroke Road is).

But here’s the thing… as I was leaving, everyone was asking me why I was going, and made me promise that I would return. So I promised, but with my fingers crossed. Because why oh why would I leave a bar, only to return to it a couple of hours later. Because it was kismet.

bisou