Curiosonari

Life is so excitingly unpredictable. There are many times I really wish I knew what was around the corner, but then I’m reminded it wouldn’t be as much fun. It was one year ago tomorrow that Puchchu (my husband, Anand) asked me to marry him as we were standing in front of Laxmi at the Hindu Temple in Malibu, CA . Who would have thought so many years ago that I would have been so blessed?

All of this makes me reminisce. Puchchu had so much going on in his life that he simply wasn’t picking up on any of “signals” I was trying to give him and now, as we look back, we can only laugh. Our slow dance with flirtation probably began in 2004 when I decided to move to Australia. While I thought moving to another country would be fun (and it did have it’s fun moments) it was painfully lonely. He must have understood this in some way because he would often ping me on IM to find out how I was doing. Although we worked together (actually, he worked for me!) he was the only one outside my family to be concerned about my well being. There were many weekends during my Ozzie days when I was so depressed that I didn’t want to leave my home, but he usually convinced me otherwise and I felt inspired to get out there and do something.

There are so many things I can think of that helped move our flirtation along. I would come back to the States for work and we’d see each other during meetings or dinner functions. There was one dinner where I definetly flirted with him and he felt it, but neither of us did anything about it. I suppose because we were working together. One time, when in a 1:1 phone meeting together, he wanted me to teach him some Spanish. I was sitting in Australia in the office. He was sitting in San Jose in the office. And my sister, Courtney, was sitting one aisle away from him and pinged me over IM asking if Anand was speaking with me. She then proceeded to let me know he was definitely flirting with me. I was thrilled and hopeful!!

During our proceeding IM conversations, I’d always suggest that he and I get together for dinner when I was next in San Jose. But it never worked out. When I’d arrive he was waiting for me to ask him about dinner…and I was waiting for him to ask me out. Both of us were losing at the game of dating.

Another time I sent him pictures of my dog, Bart, and me during one of our day excursion in Australia. Each of these pictures had comments as if they were from Bart, some of them talking about his mom (me). And then Puchchu sent me an email saying he really liked Bart’s mom. I was flying high! I was beside myself with joy!! But then a little while later he “corrected” his comments saying he didn’t understand who the “mom” was. Now I was crushed. So close yet so far. Sigh…

It really wasn’t until both of us were moving to seperate teams at work that things began to “click” for us. It just happened that two days before his parents were to return back home in India that I pulled out all stops without giving the whole thing away. I wore my prettiest work outfit to get his attention for our 1:1 “meeting” during lunch…and he noticed. Thank goodness! Things just felt wonderful and exciting as we talked non-stop…and he felt it too! After his parents left and I returned back to Australia, I asked him about the best time to visit Delhi (not knowing that’s where his parents lived) and also sent him an ecard thinking this was the last thing I’d do to make him notice me as more than a work mate. And that truly was the last thing I had to do.

From there on out, he’d call me on a daily basis over the net and we grew very close very quick. It was so romantic and exhilarating! After every phone call I felt I could go out and run a few miles just from all the excitement! It was so truly hard for me to believe. We had some of our challenges like many couples do as they begin to know each other on a deeper level, but that never stopped us. I’ll save some of those challenges for a different day. Right now, all I can think of is the true romance that happened between us to get us where we are today. Very much in love with each other.

- Shannon

This entry was posted on Friday, March 30th, 2007 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.