It was New Year's Day 2019 and I'd flown from Sydney to Brisbane only a few days earlier to housesit for a friend. My job was to look after their very big, lovely dog and I was excited to visit some parkrun locations I'd never been to.
It was very hot the day we met. I was running barefoot around the only parkrun in the world starting with the letter "Z" and I overtook Brad in the final kilometre of the 5km run.
He doesn't like being overtaken 😂
But he was also curious and interested in this (good looking 😉) running chick. He called out, saying a silly fun joke as a way to start a conversation. With a big smile on his face, I knew he was looking to chat.
That tiny spark turned into several conversations both online and offline over the coming week. He found ways to meet up by inviting himself along to the beach with me, and then deciding he was coming to the same next parkrun as me, and even sneaking in a last afternoon of running around Brisbane CBD with me before I flew back to Sydney.
It took me a few days into this process to work out that he liked me as more than a friend, and it took me until the night I was flying out to work out that I felt the same way.
By the time I landed in Sydney, I was texting him to tell him I really liked him too. That very next weekend he had flown the 900km to visit me. By the Sunday morning he'd asked me to be his girlfriend and somewhere in the hours or days following (though I don't remember the details) I said 'yes'.
Over the next few months we caught up in person as much as time and finances allowed. He flew to me and joined me for a pre-planned trip to Adelaide. I flew to him a lot (because he worked a lot more hours than me and was training for a Triathlon, while I had a lot of flexibility in my work).
He called me every single day and we'd talk for hours.
Within about 2 or 3 weeks he was asking me when I was going to move to Brisbane. Moving in with him made the most sense as I was happy to leave Sydney (I have no dependents; he had some adult dependent-ish people) and he had a whole house with plenty of space for me to move in. My work was portable, his really wasn't. It was a no-brainer.
But I wasn't ready to move straight away; I had things to wrap up before I moved my life interstate.
3 months after we met he drove the 900km from his house down to where I was staying and packed me and all my stuff up and drove me to my new home.
That was almost 4 years ago and every day I'm happy about that decision and grateful to be here. I wouldn't have it any other way.
Even when we argue and I want to strangle him.
Even when he totally misunderstands me and I feel alone.
Even when he doesn't listen to me and I feel sad.
All of it is part of being in a relationship with another human being and navigating my own humanness as well as his.
In Ladies of Hive this week one of the prompts contained these two questions:
Does love come on suddenly or grow over time?
and
What are your keys to ensuring your relationship remains strong and healthy?
My story about how Brad and I came together serves as a basis for me to answer these questions.
Does love come on suddenly or grow over time?
I've had enough lovers in my life to know that every relationship is different. What I can tell you about Brad and I is that there was this quiet knowing very early on that this was a special relationship that was easy and nourishing and alive with its own beauty. In that respect, it came on suddenly.
If you'd told me on New Year's Eve, the day before I met Brad that less than 100 days later I'd be moving interstate to live with a man I loved, I wouldn't have believed you. It seemed so fast, and yet because we were both clear about what we wanted at this point in our lives it was a natural and easy progression.
My love for Brad has also grown over time. While I know his follies and faults so much better now after living here for years I also know his strengths, talents and superpowers. The better I get to know him and the more experiences we go through together the more I love him.
What has allowed my love for him to grow over time is not just having time together it's being willing and able to work through challenges together and apart.
So my answer to the question "What are your keys to ensuring your relationship remains strong and healthy?" I feel the following are useful pieces of advice for anyone in a romantic relationship in many parts of the world:
Prioritise communicating as clearly as possible (what you need and what you want, in the big things as well as in the little things)
Own your part in arguments and seek to understand the other person's perspective (even if you don't agree with it)
Find things to do together that you both genuinely enjoy doing
Avoid compromising, look for win-wins instead
Say thank you a lot and find kind (genuine) things to say as often as possible
I'm sure there are more little things I do on a regular basis to play my part in keeping our relationship strong and healthy, and no doubt there are oodles of things Brad does too that are invisible to me in this moment. But these five spring to mind and as long you're in a relationship with someone you actually love and actually want to be partnered with then I think some version of these that are culturally appropriate to the society you live in could be helpful to make any relationship stronger and more joyful.
What do you think? If you haven't already answered this LOH prompt, whether you're a woman or not, I'd love to know what you feel are the keys that have helped your romantic relationship remain strong?
Tell me in the comments! I'd love to know.
And if you have written a Ladies of Hive post on this post this week and you're really proud of what you've written then please feel free to drop a link to your post in a comment below.
Finally, if you're a lady and want to write a post on this topic (or about another one the topic of love) then check out this post for all the details of how to participate. You'll need to be quick if you're going to get in before the end of the day, Saturday 18th Feb deadline!
All photos used in this post were taken by either Brad or me. We own the rights to them and they may not be used by anyone else. Thank you for respecting the preciousness of our story.