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Twenty lines about... marriage and the art of loving

We all seek big love. We imagine it as something magical, something that all of a sudden falls upon our heads and fills our lives with meaning. We wait for the right person. We say that it was the wrong one to marry when we get divorced.

We all seek big love. We imagine it as something magical, something that all of a sudden falls upon our heads and fills our lives with meaning.

We wait for the right person. We say that it was the wrong one to marry when we get divorced. We dream about love, we want it, we aim for it. But do we actually work for love?

Just think about it. If we want to succeed in work or art, we go to schools, colleges, universities, we look for teachers and tutors, we experiment and practise, we gain experience and develop. We invest time, put in effort and patience into something we want to achieve. And what about love?

There is a great book The Art of Loving. Despite the playful name, it’s a deep and serious-minded piece by psychoanalyst and social philosopher Erich Fromm. It clearly explains the gap between our vision of love and reality.

I'm glad I came across this book at some point in my life. It made me actually think. Before, I used to say that people I met were the wrong fit for me and my only one was still somewhere out there. I always had a lot of excuses to explain my inactivity when it came to relationships.

Speaking metaphorically, if a bulb went out in my house, I would change a house instead of fixing the bulb. My relationship efforts all had great beginnings, but never had a happy ending and unfortunately weren’t teaching me much.

And then I met a guy. It happened here, in Estevan. I recently came to Canada and everything was new and amazing to me. I was visiting friends and just taking my time to enjoy the community where people smile more and always make small talk involving you in conversations.

He was a customer at my friends’ restaurant. He came here almost every day, but unlike everybody else, he never spoke to me. Then he had a friend joining him. That friend got me involved in conversations, so we all started talking a little bit.

After another week or two he approached me with a little chunk of paper in his hands. “If you ever get bored… well, here is my number,” he said. But by then I was planning on leaving Estevan and probably never coming back. I had the university arranged in Winnipeg, which was supposed to open new then-unknown then paths for me.

He did something like “Prrr” (like horses do when they are irritated) when I explained that to him. “Oh well…” And off he went. My curiosity always was my drive. I couldn’t understand what was going on in his head. So I texted him and we went on a date.

It was later that I got to know that he was too shy and too in love to talk, and by the time he gained the courage to give me his number, it seemed like it was too late. If not for his weirdness, I probably would never get so involved, and if not for his consistency, we probably would never have a chance, but we did. And of course, we fell in love.

This touching beginning of a love story could have ended quite fast. We were two opposites. I came from a big city, where everything “grows” in stores 24/7. I adored travelling and never could sit still.

He was born in Estevan and hardly ever left Saskatchewan except for work. A farmer since his first days, he raised his own food and fixed his own equipment. And I hardly knew the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver (well, I knew the difference between the Screwdriver and the Cosmopolitan, not that it helped). I had classes starting in Winnipeg, and he had harvest starting in the Oungre area. And we were in love.

I won’t tell you that it was all roses, rainbows and butterflies. It was hard. It was a lot of work. We both had to learn a lot, adjust, gain patience, accept, forgive and learn again. I’d say building our relationships was more difficult than receiving my master’s degree. But it also was more rewarding, since it was a bigger part of our life.

After many years together, a couple of months ago we got married. We hardly told anybody about it. It was a day for us and about us. It was our way to once again say “I love you” and to celebrate our hard work. It was another step in our love-careers and I believe both of us so far are quite successful in this challenge. It’s a new page and there is a lot of work ahead, but I guess we both learned to be hard workers when it comes to our happiness.