Moments

It's rather ridiculous that the moments when you realize how much you truly love someone are not the moments the movies lead us to believe. It's not the moments that are ridiculous. It's the movies that make us think it will only be when the man sweeps in his tuxedo and shoots down the bad guy or hands us a bouquet of roses that we realize the depth of our hearts that bring new meaning to the word ridiculous.

She stood outside of her work, anxious after having been yelled at by someone who had no business yelling at her. He was on his way over, bringing her a piece of equipment she shouldn't have brought home, that her bosses didn't know she had but that she needed right that instant, to appease the person who had yelled. He was on his way through the worst traffic she'd seen in weeks. And then he got there, and she found him, and her heart swelled. She felt about to burst with the strength of her, "I love you!" but instead she just pushed all of her passion into "Thank you" and a smile. That moment, though, she also saw a flash in his eye that let her know he wasn't ready for those particular three words. She could almost see him say, "No. Not here, not now. Don't you say it yet." And she didn't.

Two days later, while climbing up a gravel road, on the way to a Wine Cave, it struck her like a ton of bricks (cliched though it is, the phrase is true), that he wants to be only with her. If he wanted to be with anyone else, he would leave and be with her. The jealousy she has felt over nothing suddenly ended. She saw in his walk, in his smile, in his mannerisms, that he is hers and hers alone, even if he's not ready for that great big word.

And finally, in the smallest of moments, when no grand gesture, no release of jealousy, nothing special at all was happening, she recognized him.

He stood beside her, hunting amongst the bags of soil at Home Depot, quite possibly the last place on earth any screenwriter would set a romantic interlude. He was trying to pick out just what she needed, a bag that would foster her little seedlings, a bag that wouldn't sit half unused on her patio for the entire season. And she turned to look at him in the late afternoon sunlight (at least the lighting was romantic), and she recognized him.

Immediately, she thought of that poem she'd fallen for years before, that one by Jewel.

and I will recognize you
amongst the many
and claim you as my own

He smiled at her and walked inside to look for the perfect size bag of potting soil, and she walked beside him, just feeling that recognition.

She looked at him in the garden section of Home Depot and knew with absolute certainty that she had found him.