Something Changed

To the untrained eye you would be forgiven for thinking that this Adventure started when I wrote the first post back in July.  You might think that it started when R was born.  You could say that it started when we realised that Z was pregnant.  I, on the other hand, like to think that this adventure has been going for a lot longer than that.  For me this all started on Thursday the 28th September 1995, 18 years ago today. 

I was settling into my first flat at university in Leicester having been dropped off by my parents on Sunday afternoon.  It was my first time away from home and I was definitely still learning the ropes of real life.  My new flatmates and I had already managed to find the local pub but on that fateful night one of them, Rich, decided that he wanted to go to the Student's Union and check it out.

I honestly couldn't be bothered.  Even at the tender age of 18 I was a pub kinda guy.  The only night club that I had ever been to and enjoyed was Happy Wednesdays, an indie club in Milton Keynes at the birth of Brit Pop.  The Union promised to be all the music I hated with worse beer than I could get in our new local, but Rich was adamant.  I relented but refused to get changed, instead keeping on my battered jeans, Adidas Gazelles and baggy black Joe Bloggs pullover.  If I was going out, I was going out on my terms.

It turned out that Rich had plans that night.  He was "on the pull" and I was to be his wing man.  This was a concept that was as foreign to me as doing my own laundry.  He spent the evening sharking around the dance floor talking to any girl that would give him the time of day and I spent the evening drinking watered down Flower's at £1 a pint.  As the night wore on and the alcohol took hold, I joined Rich on the dance floor.  I didn't join his quest to get off with a member of the opposite sex, but then something changed.

Rich bumped into a girl that he had been chatting to earlier.  He had thought that they were on the same course, but I think that was just a line he was using.  Like us, she was out with her new house mates and they were all happily dancing away to the cheesy tunes.  We joined their dancing circle and that is when I saw her.  Dancing opposite me was Z.  I'm not going to claim that it was love at first sight but it was something like that.  All I knew was that Rich was still on the pull and I didn't want him to get to her first.

In a move as cheesy as the music that the DJ was playing, I sidled around the circle so that I was at her side and, for reasons I cannot explain to this day, I held her hand.  This is not a move that I had honed over time, nor is it one that I would recommend to any budding Casanovas, but for some reason, possibly pity, Z didn't withdraw her hand and we danced.

As I said, that was 18 years ago.  9 years ago we got married and our first dance was Something Changed by Pulp.  It's been our song since we first heard it a month after we first met.  Its lyrics sum up how we met to a tee.  It turns out that Z didn't want to go to the Union that night either.  I owe Rich a debt of gratitude that I will never be able to repay.  If he hadn't insisted I wouldn't have spent half of my life with the woman I love, my best friend and the mother of my child.

When we woke up that morning we had no way of knowing,
that in a matter of hours we'd change the way we were going.
Where would I be now, where would I be now if we'd never met?
Would I be singing this song to someone else instead?
I dunno but like you said
something changed.

Lyrics by Jarvis Cocker