It was romantic because of Microsoft Excel.

Last night was special in the strangest of ways. Special, because it reminded me of that beautiful magical Saturday where you showed up with the loveliest bunch of rainbow-coloured balloons and white and red heart-shaped balloons and the most beautiful bouquet of water-blue hydrangeas and pastel pink roses for our photoshoot (done for us for free by a friend) before a beautifully simple dinner you bought me and where we trudged down Orchard road and got stopped by people who asked if we had just got married. To which you just said, “How’d you know?!” And I laughed because you always have something funny up your sleeve to say.  

But last night was special in a different way. It was special because over dinner we meddled with Mircosoft Excel and ploughed through a month’s worth of careful recording and discussed what all of this meant. The numbers we crunched didn’t look too good- there were things we had to cut out, numbers we had to squeeze and adjustments to make. There was a lot of talking, and if it hadn’t been your sensitivity and patience, I could finally see how a third to half of marriages end in divorce because of money.

Last night was romantic because of Microsoft Excel.

I think love is like that. You need to be with someone whom you know can go through anything, even the mundane and boring and serious stuff. You need to be with someone who is mature enough to look past the grand notion of romance and look at the responsibility of commitment and be willing to work through it. I am learning, that more than flowers and balloons and special dinners, love really is about looking at reality in the eye and being willing to eke out something from nothing.

It always begins right. No one ever begins dreaming about Together from the start without that giddy spell. But when do you know it’s doomed? When do you know you’ve reached a stop and have to pack it all away? Because it always starts furiously, the pages turn, faster and faster till the story becomes a blur, with the magical nights and whispered promises buzzing through the chapters. You just want to reach the end with a happy ending and call it all a day. Our youth makes us impatient like that.

But there are page breaks too. Coffee spills on the paragraphs and dog-eared pages chewing up the ends of sentences. There are unavoidable long days with neverending work, unexpected endless waiting  at dingy hospital lobbies, impatient moments and misunderstandings, tears in between unspoken words. And as we speed through the action, fend off the conflict and dance on the edges of the thickened plot, will we reach the climax in a whirlwind and then let go? Or will we, in spite of how fast the pages are being turned, remain, with our hands intertwined, on the same page?

I think, all loves are put to the test when reality sets in. When the intoxication ends, what happens? That’s when you know it’s for real, when the magic dust settles and still, you both stand in solidarity, believing in the impossibility of going back to the start, and the impossibility of reaching the end without each other.

I guess, I nearly let go on Sunday. Because it was all happening too fast and I got scared and the numbers were too big and people were telling me things and I thought we just wouldn’t make it.

But your undeterring Optimism stopped the furious page-flipping and brought us to the beginning of a new chapter. Here, here and here, you showed me. You got it all laid out on Microsoft Excel, in a big sheet with all the numbers staring back at us. We’ll be tight but we’ll just about make it.

We would. We got to rent and can’t buy a house because our future is uncertain (what with missions and the possibility of us taking a year off next year overseas). We have bills to pay and the wedding to foot. We have the realities of life staring back at us with shrugged shoulders and our parents taking two steps back because they want us to be independent.

And there you are, with your Microsoft Excel sheet, nifty typing and retyping and beaming Optimism, showing me… We’ll be tight but we’ll just about make it.

And that was special because I saw we weren’t doomed.  You wouldn’t let us be. This was no longer fun anymore- the magic dust had settled. But, you weren’t going to sweep it all away either. You were going to blow it into a smoke of fairy-mist and show me the carriage from the pumpkin. You showed me websites and homes and prices and dates. The thing is, all your colleagues are missionaries. They all started in this seemingly hapless way. And look, God never let them down. God brought them through, step by step, in honour and dignity. And God has never let us down, too.

And so last night was special, and impossibly romantic, not because of balloons or flowers or expensive things, but because in that Microsoft Excel sheet, you showed me, solemnly and methodically, with your hand over mine, the impossibility of going back to the start, the impossibility of you reaching the end without me, and the magical reality of God’s amazing provision. We’ll be tight but we will make it together.

And that was magical.