Love Actually Is All Around
Monday, November 29th, 2004
Love Actually Is All Around
A Billy Entry
I’ve never really seen the airport as a hugging and kissing type place. You know, like in the film Love Actually, when Prime Minister Hugh Grant is going on about Heathrow being a place of love and friendship... no. The last time I was at Heathrow I was stuck in the airport for nine bloody hours while our plane had the flight attendant alert lights repaired or some other such nonsense. Needless to say I wasn’t feeling very loving that day.
Maybe it’s because the time I’ve spent at airports I’ve spent mostly alone. I haven’t been on a plane in years. The last time I was it was to come here from Glasgow, and I waited in the airport by myself, and there was certainly no one to pick me up when I arrived. Airports to me are exhausting, busy places, symbolizing long, arduous journeys both in front and behind a person.
I spent time at Towerston International Airport yesterday, and there was a lot of hugging and kissing occurring. And I understood.
I’m going to miss Dom’s mum and dad. A lot. After spending so much time fretting about whether or not we were actually going to get along I forgot to prepare myself for actually liking them. And then when I did... it seems like they adjusted to life with us so easily. I suppose I got caught up with the notion of a family all of a sudden... Dom’s parents were almost accepting me as their own son (Dom’s mum especially), and I felt like a part of a family, a real family. The stereotypical, sit-com, old-fashioned nuclear family.
Well, I suppose nothing about us is quite so every-day.
Dom’s mum cried at the airport, kissing us goodbye. I knew it would happen, of course. But I hadn’t prepared for it, anyway. Last time she cried, I’d been so busy with my own tears that I hadn’t even noticed hers, really. But this time here they were, wide open and genuine and obviously unsuccessfully repressed, and all Dom and I could do was hug her tightly and remind her that we’d see her again before too long, at the wedding. The wedding. That seemed to cheer her up slightly, and with a promise to both call her at least once a week she seemed alright to get on the plane.
Dom’s dad hugged me. It was just a brief hug, but it wasn’t brief in the “Quick, let me get away as soon as possible” sort of way. It was real. After our talk on Friday a real weight was lifted from my shoulders, to know that my future father-in-law approved of me, even liked me. I thought it was a given, that father-in-laws weren’t supposed to like their son-in-laws right away. Maybe that’s only when they’re marrying their daughters.
I’ll miss their company. I’ll miss getting to know them better each day. I’ll miss hearing all the stories Dom’s never told me about his childhood because they embarrass him, but they make me fall in love with him even more. I want to know the man I fell in love with, past, present, and future. Dom’s parents are another piece of the puzzle.
I'm not sad about once again having time by ourselves, though. Our house, our rooms, our free space to snog/shag/whatever in, whenever we please. Our space to just curl around each other and talk. Which is what we did as soon as we got home from the airport.
Everything went so well this week. It feels like a dream. No hitches, no anger, no tears (except for the happy ones, which are always acceptable). Nothing but a clear sign that our wedding will be blessed.
Our wedding... we haven’t set anything yet. No dates, no locations, nothing. We need to discuss it... Dom’s birthday is in a few weeks, and I’m still plotting what I’m going to do for him, but I think I’ll make some time to discuss the event. I can’t deny that I’m eager, that I’d marry him tomorrow if I thought we could pull it off. But it’ll take some amount of planning, even if it’s only to be a small ceremony with our families. Who else would we invite, after all?
It doesn’t matter who we invite. It doesn’t matter if we get married in a cardboard box in a back alley in the dirtiest city in the world, wearing burlap sacks, being married by a drunkard with the back of a bottle of Jack Daniels as our vows. It would still be our wedding, and that’s all that matters. Dom and I. Dom and I. Dom and I. I love him.
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