the very best of friends (vol 3)

Growing up in a small coastal town as I did, life was for the most part all about surfing. Who did, who didn't, where, how (regular or goofy foot / boatman or doormat etc).
After my parents gave up driving me round the coast to a nice English-speaking private primary school every day, I finished my junior school days in our small verkrampt village school and finally, joyfully, moved on to the High School in the next town, a mythical place swarming with gorgeous surfers and the tantalising promise of a real teenage life (real = Beverley Hills 90210, of course).

We already knew, on our first terrifyingly intimidating day, to look out for 3 big boys in particular. The creme of the surfer crop whose reputations as bad boy surfer party dudes had preceded them down the coast to our little school.
I think, and hope, I'll never forget that moment, queuing up outside our new home-room, all outsized school blazers and knobbly knees, when a whisper spread down the row: 'Here they come! Here they come!' Girls and boys alike turned to watch in awe as the 3 of them strode past, achingly cool with their nonchalance and flippy hair. Two blondes and a brunette, they were the closest to celebrity most of us had ever come, and while I'm sure I wasn't the only one, right there on that spot I had an epiphany: the dark-haired one, he would be mine.

And get this: he is.

Granted it took a couple of years. He dated my then best friend (who my mother still cynically thinks I only befriended as her brother was one of The Three, thereby getting myself one step closer to my goal), and graduated 3 years before me, leaving town to do his (then still compulsory) military service.
I had the kind of high school experience one can only have in a small seaside town, a free, safe few years of crushes and endless summers and beach parties and girl friend dramas and a little bit of academia thrown in to the mix, and then one weekend he came back to town on military pass, and decided to take a chance on the girlie he'd always known had a crush on him.
And the rest is, quite literally, history.

I met my soulmate when I was 13, we started dating when I was 16, we got married 12 years later, and today we've been married for 6.
18 years together, and he's still one of my very bestest of friends.

I don't need to go into what you share in 18 years together, just the fact that its been the 18 years bridging teenagehood to grown-up parenthood says enough, and I can't do a big gushy post about what he means to me and count the ways I love him and yada yada, he's my guy, that's all there is to it.

But what I will say is that I think I've found the fountain of youth. For when I kiss him there's a moment there where once more I'm 16 on a beach somewhere, nervous and excited under the full moon, a moment where I'm 22 at an outdoor rave, ecstatic and uninhibited with thumping music and psychedelic lights, a moment where I'm 24, newly graduated from University and stepping off into the big wide world, I'm 26, baking on the rocks next to an idyllic mountain river, I'm 28, coming down the aisle before all our friends and family. I'm a first time home-owner, a small intimidated country girl starting University, I'm a dressed-up party queen, I'm a stressed-out event coordinator, I'm an awestruck first time mum.
On his lips is the taste of all of these versions of me, the lingering echo of the best years of my life (so far), and if there's one thing I know for sure, I will taste all of these there every time I kiss him until the last.

Happy anniversary babe. Love you.