on the surrealism of one’s life story turning on a dime
And then, one day, just like that, it happened. The romantic love I’d been waiting for arrived in the form of a Bumble super swipe notification, on the heels of a whirlwind trip that had left me feeling zombie-tired: a week in NY state for work, a night in Manhattan (including a hilarious UCB sketch show called Toxic Masculinity: A Musical), a lovely weekend in Seattle ending in TFC’s exciting and heartbreaking loss in this year’s MLS Cup championship, and a night in Vancouver on the way home. I was not in the mood for swiping; I was in the mood for crawling into bed and crying from exhaustion. But when the notification came in from this intriguing, nerdy, active, liberal atheist, my thought was something like “well, why not?”.
Text-based witty repartee ensued, in which I put next to zero stock after too many experiences getting excited about text exchanges only to have zero chemistry in person, and we planned our first date. As a general rule, I keep first dates simple and short; we can always extend or plan another if we want to spend more time together, but I like to have an out without having to make up an excuse if it’s not going well. In keeping with that rule, we agreed to meet for coffee, exactly an hour and a half before I needed to be at the hospital around the corner for an MRI (just for lower back pain, so no need to worry).
I came away from that hour and a half feeling, perhaps for the first time in my entire life, that I had met a man who could actually keep up with me. It was a surreal feeling—a surrealism that would foreshadow the weeks to come. The texts started up again the second we were out of each other’s sight, and continued, for hours at a time, for the next few days while he was traveling for work (including for an entire evening he spent with his out-of-town friends, who were wonderfully understanding). By the time he raced, or rather slogged, through a road trip home and rush hour traffic to make it back for our second date, we both knew (though hadn’t told each other yet) that we were falling for each other. I always know I’m falling for someone by the songs I start singing, and Ani’s “Falling is Like This” and Elvis’s “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” were on heavy rotation. Leading up to that second date, though, my trepidation was mounting: he didn’t know what I’d been up to for the past year. He didn’t know that I was potentially already pregnant. I knew he wanted a family, but could hardly dare to hope that somehow he would want one like this, and this fast. I also knew that I couldn’t make it through a whole night with him holding this in, and that, as wild and early as it seemed, it was time to put my cards on the table.
I asked him to meet me outside the restaurant when he arrived, because I knew that I would be calmed, at least temporarily, by a moment alone with him before we sat across the table sharing a meal. I was right, and our first gentle kiss was a feeling of coming home and setting off on the adventure of a lifetime all at once.
I managed to keep it together until our plates were cleared, then spilled my guts. Without going into all the details, I told him how I had arrived at the choice to go down this path, that I’d been trying for a year with the help of a friend, and that I was maybe pregnant at that very moment. Shrouded as I was in my haze of anxiety, I do not remember the particular words that came out of his mouth, but suffice it to say that they were perfect in the moment. It seemed that this beautiful, intelligent, loving, loquacious, perfectly imperfect, self-aware man already knew himself and me enough to jump in, with two feet, and say yes to the unconventional prize I was offering. It seemed that I had found myself, at long last, in the wild of the city, a real live unicorn whose path could align with mine.
On 8/8/2018, Matriarch Q strategically aligned forces with the Chen Family Dynasty and Godspeed Technologies via Treaty, and appointed the founder of L.O.V.E. and Godspeed Technologies as a Chief of Okanagan Indian Confederacy, to bring L.O.V.E. to a global audience under the 1st Nations Grassroots veil.
As of 2023, Okanagan Indian Confederacy has further strengthened its network for the worldwide roll out out L.O.V.E. via Treaty, with the Alliance of Indigenous Nations and the ASMIN Turtle Island Tribe (Métis). With the completion of peace as the mission statement of the L.O.V.E. Project, Tribes have come together to release light, love, and joy for all walks of life, in the form of evolutionary technology.
