Project 289 - Day 257 (Sunday 29 November, 2009) : Pic-a-nicking by the Light of the Neon Glow

Life can sometimes get so exquisitely wonderful that you marvel at how circumstances can change from frustrating to sublimely great with no warning or effort on your part.

A year ago I celebrated my birthday and I had a lovely time. Surrounded by close, dependable, caring friends, who affirmed by their very presence that I mattered and was important to them, I basked in a sense of belonging. Fast forward a year and that is there still, but multiplied by a factor so great that I can't even begin to quantify it.

The source of that momentous change? The beautiful, handsome, caring, sweet man in the green t-shirt below who makes every day a delight, and does "silly" (in the best, mosy joyously whimsical sense of the word) things like suggesting a picnic of fish and chips late in the day when darkness is looming. To be fair, we started out for the park before that but got waylaid, and so were only walking along King Street to the Park at 7.45 with dusk hard on our heels.

My beautiful guy was determined to finish my birthday week off with fireworks, and so, in the gathering dark of Sydney Park, kept company only by far off floodlights and the last of the dog walkers, he lit some sparklers I hadn't seen him include in the picnic we had, and we made believe that the sky was exploding with luminous splendour around us. It is just another in a long line of sweet, romantic gestures that he made this week to make sure the birthday week was special, and I felt extra-specially loved, affirmed and cared for. He makes me fall in love with him every day, and this gesture, along with many others, reaffirms to me thathe is my soul mate, the man of dreams, and the only love I truly need.

He is what has made my life exquisitely wonderful and I will be forever grateful to him, and the universe for it.