The beautiful beginning that ended

I was in love. I met my soulmate via common friends, for the sake of my blog I will refer to him as Kris Kyle. In university but we were both in relationships and we became casual friends who shared a love for basketball for about 12 years. We would meet weekly to play together and a few other friends. We watched each other get in and out of relationships and we had a few funny scenarios were I would comment on them or tell them he could do better but I had no interest in him whatso ever, in fact I remember thinking he was a bit doochy and was too full of him self.

One random day, I heard that kobe bryant, a famous idolized basketball player was coming to town. Living in the United Arab Emirates, it rarely happens when a famous basketball player popped in. So i went to the club he was making an appearance at and I bumped into Kris there, and as I haven't seen him in a few years because he was studying abroad, we were glad to see each other and we spent the rest of the evening there together. I ran home earlier than he did as I had a curfew. But then the next day, my friend who was crushing on him told me shes meeting him for coffee and asked me to join. This happened again and again for the next month. Until one day he called me and told me he'd like to hang out with me alone as he has tried over and over again to let her down easy but she won't get the hint. I said sure no problem because quite frankly she was a horrible influence friend and I don't know why I was even letting her stay in my life.

So we started meeting alone and i felt this wierd tingly feeling in my stomach and I realized, oh my. I think i like him! Little did I know, he was liking me too. So we began hanging out a lot and we found ourselves starting a new love story.

It was magical. We traveled together to our home country where he introduced me to his sister and things got exclusive right after that.

I realized I was falling for this guy quite fast which was not normal for me. but so was he so it was going great. We traveled together, built new memories, had a blast together but ofcorse started seeing each other's baggage once we passed the honeymoon phase. It was quite shocking but I believe we both felt like we were both happy with the goods more than the bads so we started making future plans.

Our relation started in September 2013, he proposed to me in November 2014 and we had our engagment party in January 2015. Yes that may have been fast but it's why we waiting 1.9 years to the wedding. so we were technically together for 3 years before we got married and knew each other for 12 years as friends before that.

Let me tell you about the beautiful proposal Kris had surprised me with. We took a trip to Italy, capri, with some of his friends and our sisters. We were there for about 5 days and had a great time. First day we rented buggies and drove around the whole island, second day we visited ruins, castles and old villages. Third day we hiked up a mountain for 2 hours to the highest point in the island for the most picturesque view you've ever seen. We sang and danced our way up and when we reached we waited in line to take pictures on the bridge built there to take the best pictures. We held hands and laughed as we waiting for our turn. When I finally stood on that spot and looked at the beautiful island and watched the views of the deep sea with the sun setting. I turned around to grab him for that picture we've been waiting for to find him down on one knee with a ring in a tiny box he held in his hands. I put my hands over my mouth as I was not expecting that. The crowd cheered for us and clapped as I said yes and leaped in for big tight hug. We snapped a few pictures, our friends congratulated us and a few minutes later as I was still blushing in awe, I asked him how long he has been planning this for, he said 3 months now, since we booked this trip. I knew then and there that I got me a good one. I was flying with happiness and couldn't wait to marry this man.

In our culture as arabs and muslims, introducing our partners to our families is tricky. We can't do that unless we're getting married. We cant have boyfriends or move in together. Both men and women live with their parents until they are married. We were breaking a rule by dating but we also understand the world we live in today and that we need to spend time getting to know each other to avoid the "old mentality" of arranged marriages in our cultures. Also both of our parents have a love marriage so they weren't going to get us to have arranged marriages as it is very old fashioned.

First we introduce each other to our siblings. Then he meets my mother, then I meet his, then the mother meet. After that he officially meets my dad alone to ask for my hand in marriage and if he accepts, then we arrange an outing with both families to meet. After that his family come over to our house to do a what we call "Qerayet Fatha" which is to islamicly claim one another so we become exclusive in the eyes of our god and religion. This is done so when others from our culture would see us as an item of some sort and we would not be "disgracing" our family names. Yes it sound weird and complicated but when we go through the steps you tend to feel a sense of appropraition and legitimacy that it makes you feel closer to each other. It makes your family proud and it also give you time to see if things are going smoothly or if something is just not working out. Everything went really smoothly and a bit too easy. Like there was a catch but we couldn't see it.

Soon after we did all the steps, we started discussing the wedding plans and had a few problems with our families as they wanted things to be done in their own way instead of letting us do whatever we wanted. This is partially cultural as well but we were fighting it. Anyway I'll write another post about my beautiful wedding and i'll share all the glamour and the obstacles we faced.

I had a great love story for these 3 years. It was kind of unbelievable.

Now what?