Life in the rear-view mirror

Sometimes the past catches up with you, making itself known when you least expect it. It’s like it has made a unilateral decision to knock on your door and remind you what happened all those months and years ago. It was about 1.30 am. Reinout had just turned out the light and was closing his eyes when I interrupted him. “Just one more thing, it’s really irrelevant but I just feel like knowing. Casual Connect, it’s not that busy this year I heard.”
He opened his eyes, confused at the topic being brought up at this time of night. “No, not really but it ’s a much larger venue than last year so it probably looks less busy than it really is.”

I thought about it for some time. I was there at Casual Connect, then hosted in Amsterdam, last year. It was a strange time really. We had moved into my house in Haarlem two months prior. There were a lot of adjustments for all of us. Reinout was still working at Spill and was an obvious delegate for the conference where he was also speaking. Before it all kick-started we had invited the organiser to our house as well as some of the speakers. I was making meatballs that night, for 7 people of so. A lot of business conversation was being exchanged and somehow I didn’t feel entirely comfortable in the company.

Things were very different then to what it is now. I felt inferior to Reinout. To his intellect, his wit and his success. Something I felt I could never live up to let alone possess and accomplish on my own terms.

It mirrored later during the conference. Gaming conferences tend to be very male dominated, and I felt like dressed-up Barbie girl people would talk to for one of two reasons; being pretty or being Reinout’s future wife.

Reinout was extremely busy during the conference but managed to find spots to catch me. He would introduce me as his fiance and every time I would feel a sting of pride for my newly acquired epithet. I had been someones friend, lover, girlfriend, partner even wife, but never someones fiance. I warm glow spread throughout my body every time I heard it.

I would catch glimpses of him, whilst he was in conversations. Always there, self assured, taking centre stage in any room he entered. How could I not feel proud of being his future wife?

Things didn’t go exactly smoothly though and I recall having some kind of argument. It made me feel horrible and couldn’t concentrate the rest of the day on the meetings I had lined up. In the evening I had a dinner with a business acquintance from Sweden. It’s someone who I really like, on a personal level too, and he managed to get my mind off my domestic issues. We later decided to go to the Real party. I was under the impression Reinout would be there, but to my disappointment he wasn’t.

The next day, the final day of Casual Connect was another day full of meetings, and Reinout was hosting a networking get-together at his local bar in Amsterdam. As a result he had rented a room for us in a chic boutique hotel, The College Hotel,  in Amsterdam.  After a late night we finally dropped in together with MJ that would share a last nightcap with us. We talked and although I can’t recall the exact conversation, Reinout came into the room and the conversation I’ve had with MJ turned into an obscure questioning of motives, truths and lies. As the minutes progressed I felt our relationship was dissipating in equal measures. I decided to stay the night although I think we broke up there and then. It was one of the worst nights ever. I cried myself to sleep and I woke up during the night from nightmares yet again finding my pillow drenched with moist. We made up that morning, but I felt extremely empty, from having been so close to lose the person I loved so much.

I went home in the morning, while Reinout wrapped up his meetings. I recall taking one step in the door and then completely succumb to my tears once again, not knowing if our fragile relationship would ever survive our imminent marriage.

—
A year on things are so different. Beyond belief. And as I recalled those days exactly a year ago, I once again started to cry. Happy tears for having met someone I love so infinitely much. A person I can not imagine being without for a single second. Someone who triggers the most complex yet pure feelings, by the very thought of him. Because as strange as it may sound, those feelings of such immense happiness and belonging, is the closest to God I have ever felt.

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