Our kitchen was yellow. It was just the two of us. One chair, we shared.
He asked me to marry him. Plain and simple. ‘I think it might be a good idea.’ No ceremony to the moment. No build up. No expectation.
I did not know what to answer. I figured, a ‘yes’ might be a good idea at this point. Can properly think about it later.
We had known each other for less than six months and our kitchen was yellow, and it wasn’t our kitchen anyway, it was mine. Just that it wasn’t mine either. It was a university rental in a non-affluent part of Brighton.
Three months passed. One cloudy day in the summer – no rain – I was getting ready for the wedding, in our yellow kitchen. I was wearing a white, strapless, midi high-street dress, a bouquet of fresh flowers, borrowed pearl earrings and charity shop-sourced fancy shoes. I felt like a princess. I had spent the previous day ‘wedding shopping’ with my friend, who was the one who made sure we grabbed all the bargains and had everything ready for the big day. She hand-picked the wild flowers and made my bouquet.
Truth is, as I was standing in my yellow kitchen, I was not so sure what the significance of that big day really was. We were marrying in haste, it seemed, and I was awfully young. It was my first rash decision about an important life event – it has also been my only one, ever since.
Did I really know this strange man who had offered to marry me so that we could be together? What was I actually getting into?
For a long while, I thought the uncertainties and doubt and euphoria and sheer fear which surrounded my day in the yellow kitchen were mine and mine only. Since then, I have come to understand that there is something quite natural in fearing the unknown, and, whichever stage in your life you may be getting married at, weddings are to some degree a leap in the dark and an incredible commitment and an act of faith.
I left the yellow kitchen around 930am, to be at the registrar’s for 10am. From then on followed an unbelievable course of events. All that I thought happened only in the movies, did happen.
On this last part, another time. All I can tell you now is that the clouds evaporated and my charity shop sparkly shoes shined in the sunlight, and I had such huge blisters by the end of the day that I never wore those shoes again.
You can read more about my husband here. These are his parents and this is one of his best friends. And here is another – also REAL – love story.
THE GREAT GET TOGETHER
And now for the campaign. Pawel and I met in Brighton.
We had both arrived (unbeknown to us at the time, on the same day) to the UK to study for masters degrees (in opposite subjects). We were both funded by organisations at home (back in Romania and Poland) who believed in us. We were both going to go back to said home and start our academic careers.
Having met and realised that we simply belonged together, our only option was to stay. I could not speak Polish at the time, neither could he, Romanian.
We stayed, because we wanted to be together. We felt welcome and embraced our diversity, which was always celebrated.
This is what the Jo Cox Foundation do. They have put together two wonderful and easy to do campaigns: one around Christmas time and one in the summer. This summer, between the 22nd – 24th of June, they are hoping to encourage as many communities as possible to ‘get together’, that is, to organise an event in their neighbourhood which is an opportunity for all the different people living there to meet and interact. A way of celebrating difference rather than sameness. Something which I, Pawel and our children do, with joy, every single day. Let’s celebrate #moreincommon.
If you want to do something for your local community, go to THE GREAT GETTOGETHER‘s website or to their online channels, here, here and here and follow the step by step guidelines on how to organise a small (or big) local get together.
Why not drop me a line to show how it went?
StoriSSe a charity