Just before the pandemic – with uncannily lucky timing – my boyfriend (not yet husband) and I took six months off work and travelled the world.
Even just writing that sentence feels surreal, years later, when we have the photos and memories to prove that it actually happened. The overwhelming gratitude has never worn off, and I don’t think it ever will.
Halfway through our sabbatical, we found ourselves in Sri Lanka – a country that very quickly cemented itself as one of our favourite places we’ve ever been (title still held!). We explored its expansive beaches, misty mountains, peacock-rich game reserves and tea plantations that made us feel like we’d never fully understood the concept of “green” before, enamoured anew with every vista, each public transport adventure, the crack of each can of local Lion beer, and the nirvana of each exquisitely spiced meal. Dramatic? Sure. Accurate? Extremely.
But, really, it was the people who gave our trip the happy glow that makes a place burrow deep into your heart. There was such genuine warmth in every interaction, every question or suggestion, every head bobble. More than once, we left a conversation and said in unison, “He’s so kind!”
At the end of the trip, we’d planned a final bus ride to the airport – with the corresponding amount, plus a little buffer, of local currency left in our wallets. At the bus stop, chaos reigned, made trickier by luggage and monsoon rain. A taxi driver came to chat to us, offering to take us directly to the airport, which sounded very tempting… but we didn’t have enough local currency left.
“Wait, wait, ok?” he said, as he hurried through the rain to chat to someone across the road. He came darting back to us to tell us that his friend had an airport pickup and was headed that way anyway, and was happy to take us for the amount we had left, not a problem, not a problem.
Primed by the kindness we’d experienced for the last two weeks, we looked at each other, a silent, “Should we risk it?” conversation held with eyes rather than mouths, weighed against the adrenaline-fueled, three-bums-to-two-seats bus rides of recent days.
Which is how we found ourselves running through the rain, climbing into a strange van, and handing over the last of our money as we waved at the taxi driver we’d just met like he was the designated diplomat for rain-drenched tourists.
I was like… 98% sure we would end up at the airport. A percentage pushed higher because Joe trusts way less easily than I do, golden retriever that I am. And if he thought it was fine… it was fine, right?
I breathed a gentle sigh of relief (cynical South African!) as we glided through the airport entrance, heart swelling as I marvelled at the magic of this country – which was when the door of the van slid open with a jolt, and we were faced with the Sri Lankan army.
They asked Joe where we were from, and where we were going. It was not in the lilting cadence we’d become used to. With the residue of the morning’s unusual events still in my mind, I wasn’t entirely sure how things were going to play out.
They pointed at me, and said, at volume, to Joe, “Who is she? Your wife? Girlfriend?”
He turned to me, paused, smiled, and with complete calm said to the shouty men, “She’s my partner.”
Hello, romance!
I mean, they had guns and everything! But that’s exactly what our relationship was – and is. A partnership. On our thrilling travels, making dinner in our kitchen, walking the dog, cleaning out the spare room cupboard. Or, as it turned out, at a standard airport security check. Because they nodded, closed the door, and we drove to the drop-off zone to board a plane, laughing at the incongruence of it all.
I told a much shorter version of this story in my wedding vows. I couldn’t think of a better way to say, “I love that we’re such a team. I want to do this forever, with you.”
And that’s one of the things I love most about what I do – listening to your stories, seeing why you love your partner and how you love them, and weaving those moments into some of the most important words you will ever say.
Tell me your story, and I will write you something true.
