I’ve heard lots of stories from people saying they “knew” immediately when they met their spouse, and when love struck immediately like a lightening bolt from the sky – I had never believed any of that. But on 5 de mayo, 2011, I discovered this is real, and it does actually happen.
In the beginning of 2011, I was recently single (after ending a bad relationship) and simply enjoying life in San Francisco. Several months passed where I took time off to examine the previous 33 years of my life when, on cinqo de mayo, a friend invited me to a get-together at a local restaurant. (ok, it was Tortilla Heights). I didn’t know this at the time, but a friend of mine was secretly arranging for me to meet a girl she knew who was also recently single and new to SF.
Weeks earlier, our friend had emailed both of us separately (with links to each other’s facebook pages of course) to put the seed in our minds. I had completely forgotten about it, but on that night, our friend told me (halfway into my third margarita) that this mysterious “Meena” was on her way. I was excited and terrified at the same time and I simply tried to relax and curiously awaited for her to arrive.
I realize this sounds corny and cliche, but I remember the exact moment Meena walked into Tortilla Heights and I simply gravitated over to her. I remember her being surrounded by several of her girlfriends, and it was like they weren’t even there. I somehow just passed through them like they were invisible, locked eyes with Meena and started talking to her like we were best friends who hadn’t seen each other in 30 years. I don’t know how this happened.
We closed down the bar, walked over to her place, talked for hours after, and when I finally left to head home, I emailed my friend and told him I had met my wife that night. I didn’t know this until months later, but Meena had done the same thing with her friend that same night.
It only took 10 days for me to tell her I was in love.
And it only took 2 months for my work to inform me that they needed me to relocate to the Middle East for a project – for at least one year.
It is true that love does conquer all though. By November, Meena got on a flight in San Francisco and traveled to the opposite side of the world to Doha, Qatar. And the next day, at a spot I found way off the grid in between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Desert, I did something I never knew I would get to do in my life.
I always wondered what it would feel like. Who the person in front of me would be. What she would look like. What it would be like to know you found that one person. Actually, when the moment came, none of that was in my head. I was in the moment like I’ve never felt. I got down on one knee, and I asked the most amazing girl I’ve ever met to marry me.
We were married at City Hall in San Francisco on December 30, 2011 (barely 6 months after meeting) and Meena joined me for what ended up being a 2 year long mid-east adventure. We are now back in SF and I could not have ever imagined sharing my life with a person this amazing.