These words from my favourite Australian artist Nick Cave's song Are You The One That I've Been Waiting for, are very dear to me today. Eight years ago today, at just after noon, I arrived in Sweden and Lars-Göran and I met for the first time.


As many of you know, we met on-line in mid 2000. We had known each other for months thanks to a shared interest, a bit of serendipity and MSN Messenger. Getting to know someone through instant messages, emails and long nightly telephone conversations is interesting. In a way, it’s better than face to face dating because there’s no movie to watch or dinner to comment on. There’s a forced sense of conversation. You have to keep the talk flowing and in the process you get to know each other faster and on a deeper level in a few phone calls than most people do over a plate of pasta.

We spent weeks racking up the huge phone bills, sending each other surprise notes and sentimental letters. We fell asleep on the phone together, in a bittersweet sort of ritual where fooled ourselves into thinking we were together.

At some point in a long distance/physical strangers relationship, you realise that it’s time to fish or cut bait. There was a certain romantic magic in waiting every night for the phone to ring, a nervous kind of anticipation that made our love for each other somehow urgent and intense. We were ready to make the leap, to see if we could take that intensity and urgency and those deep conversations and carry them over into the flesh.

So we set a date. First week in December, I would travel to Stockholm, Sweden from Adelaide, Australia. We’d meet at Arlanda Airport. We’d find out if what was already an unconventional relationship in more ways than one would work.



As I sit here writing this - listening to both the plaintive voice of Nick Cave and to the December wind whip the branches outside of my window, in much the same way I did eight years ago - I can conjure up every single emotion I felt in the days between planning my trip here and the actual fruition of that trip. The nervousness, the worry, the anxiety, the constant reassurance we gave each other that everything would work out, that we shouldn’t be worried about things like the way our hair looked or the zit that suddenly made a very untimely appearance on my chin. We talked each other down off of absurd ledges, like what if you hate the way I look and you run the other way, or what if there’s no physical attraction, no spark, no fireworks when we kiss for the first time?

Was I worried? Absolutely. After a few years of being depressed and lonely, and after giving up all together on relationships and men in general, I had the proverbial knight in shining armour show up out of the blue. I was happy. Comfortable. Content. In love. Of course, the old self esteem issues showed up and I spent days freaking out, thinking he would find me a hideous beast and completely unlovable, that I would step off the plane, he'd take one look at me and then throw himself under the tracks of the Arlanda Express rather than have to face me.




And then there was the fairy tale dreamer in me that envisioned the whole thing, night after night, laying in bed and playing out the scenario as if I were writing the script for some happily-ever-after-movie. I'd step off the plane, our eyes would lock, I'd drop my bags and he'd hold out his arms and I'd run to him as the airport arrivals hall turns magically into a field of poppies and wildflowers and the wind would be blowing my hair back and he’d be wearing chain mail as his white steed looked on admirably as I fell into his arms.

Ahem. Where was I?


So the day finally came. I watched out the window as countries and oceans went by in a blur, each passing airport bringing me closer to either realising a dream or - and here’s one I didn’t think of until just then - meeting with a serial killer who meets women over the internet, seduces them, chops up their bodies and boils their flesh.




At Arlanda, I hesitated. I just stood there in the middle of the moving throng. I stood there and imagined, for the last time, what was going to happen when I went through customs and to the arrivals hall where I was supposed to meet him. It will be the most romantic moment of your life, I told myself. And I walked.

My plane was on time. He was absurdly early. Then I heard someone say "Excuse me...". That was him, right? In my heightened state of paranoia and anticipation, my brain decided to throw some doubt into the mix to really mess me up. What if that’s someone who just looks an awful lot like him? What if it’s just some random guy waiting for a ride and your guy not only isn’t there, but bailed on you and is back home, watching a movie and contemplating how he’s going to tell you that he just doesn’t feel that way about you?

Whoa. Deep breaths there, Marie. Calm yourself.




He looked up. I knew right away it was him and my first instinct was to just stand there like an idiot and stare at him. Which I did. And his first instinct was to just stand there like an idiot and stare at me. Which he did. I’m not sure what happened next. He insists that I made the first move an practically tackled him to the ground with a bear hug and shoved my tongue down his throat. I think he made that up, because I remember him walking towards me. Either way, it wasn’t quite the romantic moment I thought it would be and frankly, it was kind of awkward. For just a few moments, though. When we regained our composure and he smiled and I smiled and he reached for my hand, I knew. He knew. Yes, we could take that intensity and urgency and those deep conversations and carry them over into the flesh.

We walked outside and the bracing December air made me shiver. He wrapped his coat around me and we stood in the carpark and held each other and smiled and I swear there was no one else in that world but the two of us for that time. Every sound of the city, every person, every building was obliterated and we were the last two people on earth, standing on top of the world and making out like two kids kissing for the first time.



I may often say in jest that my husband Lars-Göran is damn lucky to have me as his wife, but if truth be told it's actually me who is the lucky one. Without his love, support, guidance and strength, I would not be here and there would be no crazy Marie to brighten up your day.

He's being very evasive about later on today. All I know is that I don't need to prepare dinner... very mysterious....