Ten years ago today, I put my hand on J’s knee when we were sitting at a bar just around the corner from the office. The bar, Krokodil, was a gay bar that served cold beer and good food for the people that could fit in the eight tables it had.

We were there, a group of us, and at some point, late that night, I rested my hand on J’s knee, a gesture that – I have been told later – sent shock waves through her body. At the time, I was unaware of this.

I was unaware of both the shock waves and the fact that my hand had traveled that distance.

Of course, I wasn’t unaware of the fact that there was a beautiful young lady sitting next to me. And not just any beautiful young lady, but the one I had been emailing with like crazy for the past month or so. The one I had been walking around Stockholm with after work, and whom I enjoyed having a cup of latte with at the coffeeshop a few blocks away from the office.

But that night, before my hand met her knee, the main topic of discussion had been the husband of a colleague of ours who had bought a painting off the wall of Krokodil. I think he paid 5000 kronor for it, and just asked them to keep it for him until the next day when he’d pick it up.

The next day was the day before our annual Christmas party. That time, and probably every time now that I think about it, the party was held at the office that had, for that one night, been turned into a nice club in the heart of the Stockholm Old Town, across the street from the Royal Castle.

The day after the Krokodil moment, Thursday, we didn’t talk about my hand, or her knee, or the meeting of the two. We still talked about how crazy cool the guy had been. “Buying paintings off the walls, can you imagine that? I wonder what she said.”

The emails between my desk in the third floor of the office and J’s in the second, next to our main conference room, had been very frequent ever since our trip to Bologna a little over a month earlier. On the second night of the teambuilding trip to Bologna, Son’s Godfather and I fixed up a little party in our room, and J turned up.

There she was, this young woman with a great hair and a posture that defined confidence. I had never spoken to her, despite our sharing the same office space – our desks almost next to each other – a few weeks during the summer, before I moved up to the third floor. I was probably in one of my moods, in a Finland funk, because most days I just sat at my desk with earphones on, listening to music, and minding my own business.

But she didn’t go unnoticed. Not with the way she carried herself, walking downstairs to get a cup of hot chocolate in the afternoons.

So, when she showed up at our hotel room party in Bologna, I – as a host – went to talk to her. And there was something about her that made me really talk. And I don’t mean “a lot”, but that somewhere between my doing the limbo, and throwing my slippers out the window – literally – I went for the personal stuff. And we connected.

The next morning, before our first team building exercise, I sat down next to her and told her that we’d be doing the first one together, because we made a great team.

Call it a hunch, call it love at first talk, call it luck – it was probably all of the above – but you can’t say I didn’t hit a bullseye with that one.

We do make a great team.

And she knew it, too. That’s why she – as a member of the company’s dinner organizing committee – made sure we sat across the table from each other during the dinner that night. And we somehow ended up at the same table at the wine tasting. And at the dinner after that. At the airport, when we were trading stories about the Phantom, and she was still laughing at all my jokes, I knew.

On the plane home, she sat in the seat in front of me. About a half an hour before landing – this is a Sunday – she turned around and said:

“Wanna have lunch with me tomorrow?”

And I said, “sure.”

That’s when the emailing started. She sent me a message the next day, confirming the lunch offer, and I confirmed my sureness.

From: J
Sent: Monday, November 01, 1999, 10:33 AM
To: Risto
Subject: hej

I’m going to have lunch with a nice colleague of mine. Her name is J, and most days she’s got Grandma’s lunchbox with her.

I know this because J kept a record of every single email, and we have the first few months printed out.

And we talked, and wrote hundreds of short and long messages to each other all through November, all the way to the early December night when we went out to Krokodil.

From: J
Sent: Monday, November 22, 1999, 10:07 AM
To: Risto
Subject: godis

But with broad shoulders?

Little did I know when that hand met that knee that just six months later, we’d drive across the US together, or that we’d move to Finland, get married, get married in Las Vegas, or that I’d be sitting here with two beautiful kids with the owner of the said knee.

Or, that two months later, she’d look at her favorite sweater and see a handwritten note saying “made in heaven” taped on the tag and she’d laugh at the lame joke because it was a reference to our first movie together, “A night at the Roxbury”. She’d know.

Or that the cool, black Canada T-shirt I bought in Orillia in 1990 would first turn into her pajamas, then a beloved sleeping rag to Son and, eventually, Daughter.

At the time, I didn’t even know that just two days later, we’d run from the company Christmas party to another one, crashing another company’s Christmas party, and that we’d dance, and that I would put my hand on her knee again, this time hoping that she’d notice it. And I definitely didn’t know that we’d kiss for the first time that night.

I may have been hoping, but I sure didn’t know.

All I knew, sitting at the table at Krokodil exactly ten years ago, my arms waving all around at times, and straying to knees that weren’t mine at other times, was that falling in love was a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday.