Three weeks before I was scheduled to move to Montreal, my friend Mafalda sent me an email.
“I just did a Tarot card reading for you,” she wrote. “The cards say that today or tomorrow you will meet a man who will play a central role in your life. He is tall, intelligent, has green eyes. There is a lot of passion between the two of you. He will help you out in many difficult situations. According to the cards, he is one of the most important people in your life.”
What is she on about? I asked myself. I’m moving to Montreal. The last thing I’m trying to do is meet any men here, in New Haven. For the purposes of fun, I had two admirers scheduled for the three weeks before leaving, so meeting anybody new made no sense. Mafalda’s readings are usually spot-on but this one made no sense, so I dismissed it.
On that very day, at 8 pm, I met N. He was tall, intelligent, green-eyed, and completely perfect in all respects. We started living together on our second date. For the next two and a half years, we had a long-distance relationship, and then we got married.
The way we live now (c) is precisely what I had planned in so much detail right before we met.
Of course, it still took me a while to get to the point where I could feel committed to him for life. For years, I couldn’t understand how anybody could promise they would want to stay with the same person 40, 50, 60 years later.
“How can anybody know?” I thought. “So many things can change. How can you really, truly know that this will still be the person for you when you are 90 years old? How can you guarantee that somebody more attractive will not come along in the distant future?”
I worried and fretted about this until one day I finally got it. I was looking at the starry sky and I suddenly realized that now I could sate with a complete certainty that 40, 50, 1000 years from then, I would love N. and only want to be with him. And nobody better or more attractive would come along because they didn’t exist.
Thank you for reading!
Clarissa's Blog 
yay love story. People say you “just know” when you find The Right One..and every teenager and average person out there *thinks* they know, but they’re not sure. Then you meet the right one…and you Just Know.
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*until one day I finally got it…*
How long do you think one should wait for the feeling (and, if it doesn’t come, leave): months, years?
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Leave?? Why should one leave if one is having a good time?
I think the main criterion should be “Am I having a great time in this relationship?” And not anything else.
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Tangential: when I saw “Mafalda”, I thought, “haha, reference to the Italian culture that’s the closest I come to knowledge of the Hispanosphere” — but no! She’s Argentinean! I suppose, along with Vinicius de Moraes et hoc genus omne, she must have been imported to Italy.
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Yes, my friend Mafalda is Argentinean. 🙂 She is of Italian descent, though. So an Italian imported to Argentina gets a nickname from an Argentinean character imported to Italy.
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