‘Soulmate in Amsterdam means the world to me’

IMET Fenna a little over a year ago, not by luck or chance, but because I have a sister who knows me better than I know myself. I was out with my sister and some friends one night and about a week prior I had mentioned to her that I was feeling a bit lonely. Like I was missing something.

So, we are out having a nice evening and I notice I hadn’t seen Amanda (my sister) in a solid half hour.

Suddenly she comes out of nowhere with a huge grin on her face. She grabs me and looks me hard in the eyes and says “David, you have got to meet this girl!”

She drags me over to the bar and taps the arm of a girl with shoulder-length blonde hair. The girl turned around and before me stood the most beautiful girl I had laid eyes on in the last 10 years.

It’s hard to explain, but she wasn’t only beautiful to me because of how she looked. In her eyes and in her smile I could tell that this person was someone I needed to love.

It was as if I had been searching for her or something as clichéd as that. But like I said, it is a very difficult emotion to explain.

The rest of the night Fenna and I spoke only to each other. I learned that she’s Dutch and lives in Amsterdam. She was only in Cape Town to do research for her thesis paper she was writing for her Master’s degree. She’s 27, four years older than me!

Which does not seem like much, especially because I’ve always felt older than my age. But it was refreshing being with someone who was a bit older, driven and focused.

After hours and hours of conversation there was one clear turning point that I remember as the moment I fell in love with Fenna.

(And yes, I fell in love with her the very first night I met her. I know, it seems crazy to me too.) We were speaking about music as I was rolling a cigarette. She told me some of her favourite artists, I knew and like all of them too. When I told her my all-time favourite artist was Sufjan Stevens, she said she really likes him. This is a big deal for two reasons: 1. I am a professional musician and Sufjan Stevens has played a critical role in shaping me as a musician. 2. No one ever knows who he is. When Fenna told me this I was overwhelmed with excitement. She began singing one of his songs and with a cigarette filter in my mouth I sang along. Suddenly she stopped singing, reached and pulled the filter from my mouth, throwing it on the ground.

She grabbed my face and kissed me, just like that. Out of the blue, with the words of Sufjan still trailing from my mouth. It was the most magical, most passionate and emotional first kiss I have ever experienced.

Ever since that night we have been together. Sadly she had to leave three short weeks after we met. She had to return to Amsterdam. We have been doing the long-distance thing since then and it is going well.

I worked full-time when we met, but I took up a second job at another restaurant to make enough money to see her at least three times a year. We always split the plane ticket, whether I go there or she comes here. Over my birthday last July I visited her in France at a friend of the family’s vacation house.

It was picture perfect. Just the two of us in a quaint farmhouse in a small French town, taking care of the house and the dogs and the pool. Those two weeks were the days that solidified how I felt for Fenna.

When I returned home after that vacation, I knew I was going to marry this girl. Now I am just waiting until we are finally together at last, and the first thing I am going to do when that day comes is get on one knee and pop the question.

But for now, I must wait. It means a lot of hard work now to afford plane tickets. It means months apart with the only saving grace being that technology has given us the ability to video chat when we can. It means constant heartache and tough winter nights without the one I love.

But all of that I will deal with. Because the way Fenna makes me feel about myself and about the world around me... it cannot be put into words. Any attempt would be futile and exhausting.

I would love to be able to treat Fenna to an evening the next time we can afford to fly her down here. A surprise night away from home, pampering her in a hotel, I know she would love it and it would be another beautiful memory we could cherish when she has to leave again.