Flashback Friday: A Love Story

I am participating in another Flashback Friday (I do realize that it has indeed been Saturday for almost five hours now--my computer was having issues putting a picture in this blog).  Please check out Christopher and Tia for the host of this weekly event. :)  [Warning: this Flashback Friday is extremely long & I can't guarantee that it will be all that entertaining!!!  It is a story of how my husband and I met, fell in love, and got married.  If love stories with happy endings nauseate you, please feel free to click away from my blog.  You will not offend me. :)  Read at your own risk.  I am dead serious--I type really really fast and I didn't realize how long the whole thing was until I was done.  So, you were warned right?!]

John and I were married way back in 2006 (exactly one year and two weeks before our little runt came along).  We had a relatively short engagement compared to most people--only seven months.  We were engaged a few days before Christmas and were married in July.  It was a beautiful summer wedding. :)  I guess I should back up a little, since John and I have a lot of history together...

We're going way way back...My parents moved my brother and me back to the same little town they had graduated from when I was about to start the first grade.  From then on I grew up with the same people and went to the same school.  John, however, moved around several times up until the age of twelve--even living in Indonesia for a couple of years.  When he was twelve his parents decided to move back to the same place that they had both grown up as well--which brought John to the same small town and school as me.  The small town I grew up in combined with the local military base kids for middle school and high school (different elementary schools).  So, at the beginning of the seventh grade all of the kids from my elementary school were preparing to combine with a bunch of military kids that none of us knew (seriously?  whose bright idea was it to combine schools in middle school--that is probably the worst time to introduce competition and "us" vs. "them" attitudes).    John was both lucky and unlucky that he moved there at the beginning of that school year--most people just assumed he was from the other side, so he wasn't considered a new kid per se, but the bad news is everybody thought he was from the "other" side so he had nobody to form an alliance with.  Eventually we all merged and it became as natural as all the years in elementary school.  Most of our good friends in high school were a bizarre grouping of old friends and new military kids who moved in for the last couple years of high school.  

I actually still can remember my first memory of John quite vividly.  It was the first day of seventh grade and I walked into the Honors Social Studies classroom where a ton of my friends were.  Unfortunately I was about a minute after the bell because I had issues opening my locker (which was not alleviated for another couple weeks until my mom had to help me get my books when I was using crutches from a sports injury--I had been bribing my locker neighbor to unlock my locker for me in between classes).  Luckily the teacher wasn't there yet, but unluckily all the seats next to my friends were taken.  There was exactly one chair open and it was next to John.  I remember seeing him and instantly feeling some sort of shift--maybe just curiosity but I can't really say.  I think if I were to analyze it too closely now I would infer my current feelings onto the memory and claim it was "love at first sight", though I know that wasn't true.  It think it was more an inclination or a feeling that he was somehow going to be a part of my life--a friend perhaps?  I don't think I understood how big of a part at the time, but subconsciously I could sense something.  Anyway, so I asked him if the seat was taken and he looked up at me like he couldn't  believe I was talking to him.  He seemed really shy and told me the seat was free and blushed.  It was actually really endearing.   I sat down and the teacher came in and I moved on with my first day of middle school, not really noticing that I never really got to say hi or introduce myself to the shy boy in Honors Social Studies. 

My husband's first real memory of me happened a couple of weeks later in our Honors English class (yes, we were both nerds, so what?).  I have no recollection of this event whatsoever, but it definitely sounds like me. ;)  This would probably be a good time to insert that I was a pretty outspoken young woman who liked to get in arguments and was totally into feminism.  I had a lot of friends but tended to get along better with guys as friends.  I had been playing sports with all the guys since I was six (including football--though basketball was my passion).  I didn't have a lot of patience for all the cattiness and fights among girls (though I didn't escape it by any means).  A lot of guys liked me (which I didn't really learn about until much later) and were intrigued by me--I was a good athlete, slender, smart, a good girl, but also had a little bit of an edge and an attitude as well.  I think more than anything guys had a little trouble understanding me and felt safer with me as a friend than as a girlfriend--especially since I tended to spout comments like the one that is my husband's first memory of me. 

Apparently we were in class and the teacher was going around the room and asking each student to tell him something that we wish would happen, and then he would write it on the board (I assume it was some sort of writing prompt for some journals we had to write in each week and a way for us to get to know each other and for him to memorize our names. )  John says that he remembers not really knowing anybody at that point and then when the teacher got to me, I said, "I wish guys would figure out that women are superior in every way" (quite the little feminist I was--no wonder the guys weren't clambering over each other to ask me on a date--I'd be scared too!).  Did I also mention that I started out this school year with a really short haircut which shocked everybody who knew me since I'd always had shoulder length or longer hair (a picture for another Flashback Friday).  It was a bold move, and I'm sure more than one person questioned my sexuality during that year. :)  So, anyway, I give this brilliant answer and John is laughing to himself about it.  Apparently this was memorable enough for him to remember it though he remembers pretty much nothing else from middle school.  All he remembers is some vague memories hanging out with some guy friends...and liking me.  :)  I didn't really have any idea this was his first memory of me until much much later.  I'm still seriously shocked that this was his first memory of me and he still decided to marry me.  (yeah, try to wrap your mind around that one)

During our middle school years both of our dads worked together as Boy Scout leaders (my little brother was in boy scouts).  I basically had grown up going to Boy Scout activities with my dad.  Angry little feminist that I was, I tried to push them enough to let me join and made my opinions on their blatant sexism (they wouldn't let me join) public on several occasions. (Hahahaha.  It is a wonder my dad actually took me anywhere...)  I have since come to my senses and realized that an organization that is built upon the idea of teaching boys how to be honorable men really doesn't have to explain why it is they don't let girls in.  It's not like they advertise anything but that, I suppose.  *shrug* But, I digress.  So, our fathers knew each other and got along and I would tag along to all of the Boy Scout events.  This was how John and I ended up getting to know each other and became friends.  We ended up becoming really good friends in middle school.  John liked me, but I didn't know that.  And I liked him, but I had no idea yet (I was pretty much clueless when it came to boys and them liking me).  So, what resulted was me "dating" (I use this term loosely since it was middle school and the extent of this was a week or two of calling each other girlfriend & boyfriend) my share of boys.  

I guess the point for John when he really realized he liked me a lot was when I went away on a school trip to Washington D.C. for spring break in 8th grade with several other classmates (including John's best guy friend) and came back "dating" him (really it involved holding hands like once and then the kid ignored me and I ignored him for a week of school once we got back before we broke it off).  This made John very jealous and angry and then he realized he really liked me, but alas, he was the shyest person (though he pretended to be confident) so he never really told me.  *sigh*

Enter: high school.  The first week of our freshmen year of high school was really memorable for more than one reason--9/11 happened.  Anyone old enough to remember that day can understand when I say it was a scary emotional day.  I remember waking up and my mom was watching the news of the first plane that flew into the first tower.  And I was watching it too when the footage of the second attack happened.  I remember being shocked and terrified and numb and then tearing up.  I remember being at school horrified and terrified and unsure of what was happening.  I was only fourteen and many things were beyond my comprehension at the time.  I remember teachers crying, speculations flying, classmates worried that their military parents would have to go to war, and just a really strange unease and unspoken fear that settled over the entire school.  The very same day was also the day that I realized I really liked John.  (Good thing I'm not a superstitious person because that can't be a good omen.  Neither can being bit on the foot by a brown recluse the night  before your wedding.  So, yeah, good thing I'm not. But, I digress.)

Now, I would first like to begin by asking you all a simple question: who goes to school on a day like 9/11 and then asks a girl out??  Who?  Oh wait, John does. *sigh*  I wish I could say that this girl was me, but it wasn't (cue the sad violin).  No, this girl was my best friend.  Best friend since elementary school.  Apparently they had both been pressured by some overzealous mutual friends over the summer and the week leading up to this to date each other.  John had made up his mind the night before to finally ask her out so people would stop pestering him (and let's be honest, she's pretty terrific, so I can't blame the guy).  So, he asks her out and about two seconds after this I walk up to them.  They both are acting pretty suspicious, so I ask them what's up?  They proceed to inform me that they are now dating.  

To describe what I felt at that exact moment is really difficult for me...it was as if a thick black veil was suddenly wrenched from my face, revealing something that I really should have figured out a long time ago.  I realized that I really really liked John like I had never liked any guy before and in the very same instant I realized that I had just lost my chance.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  Seriously, I don't remember ever feeling more jealous and devastated in a taken aback sort of way as that moment.  It was utterly absurd and ridiculous that I should feel this way--I hadn't even thought of him in that way before that moment and I should have been excited for them both.  But, hey, I'm only human!

Flash forward a week: they break up because of a rather complicated situation with another guy that she liked (which I won't get into because who the heck wants to have their relationship mistakes blogged about for others to read?  and since she is still my best girl friend, it shall remain a mystery).  So, they aren't dating anymore, and instead of trying to embrace the situation and be real with my feelings, I run the other way.  I think it was fear over caring too much about a friend and then losing his friendship and not wanting to ruin my friendship with my best friend over a guy she dated.  Instead, I did the logical thing for a fourteen year old girl (maybe that was just logical for me?) would do: I dated somebody else. (I didn't say it made logical sense to anyone else...just a fourteen year old girl.)  

I had met this guy the first week of high school; he was a junior.  Trust me, whatever you are thinking was not at all how it was.  First of all, we met through a book club at the high school in which we were selected to go and speak at a Librarian's Conference the very first week of school (I told you I was a nerd, didn't I?  Not your typical nerd since I played all the sports, but still...a Librarian's Conference?! ).  Second, he was incredibly decent. Third, he pretty much resisted dating me for a couple of months until he realized that my tough girl facade wasn't really who I was--I was a good girl to the core (though I tried to pretend otherwise).  We became good friends, I became a little obsessed (I mean, a junior wanted to date me) and caught up in the excitement of it all, and we ended up dating.  I would like to make it abundantly clear that he was one of the nicest guys I have ever met and still a friend of mine (he is also happily married now too).  He was a gentleman, he was polite, he adored me, he had an incredible family, and we were good together.  But since this is a flashback to my wedding with John, you would be safe to assume that it didn't last forever with this particular guy...

The boyfriend, John, and myself were all in Knowledge Bowl together (yes, yes, I know--nerds).  Being in a club like this you have to be fairly intelligent.  However, there is no prerequisite about not being clueless.  Apparently I was plenty of that as well.  John was insanely jealous of me dating this guy.  And the boyfriend apparently picked up this vibe.  Commence the rivalry.  I was completely oblivious to all of this--this went on for months before I realized that it was going on (so, my first clue should have been when my boyfriend threatened to throw John over a balcony in between rounds at a Knowledge Bowl regional competition).  And I didn't realize it was going on until I started to come to grips with the fact that I had some pretty intense feelings for John...in retrospect, I think the boyfriend knew what I was in denial about long before I ever did.  I think he thought if he loved me more and made it clear to me that he wanted to spend forever with me that I'd think he was enough.  *sigh*  So, this is where I am the really really horrible person.  I'm not sure there is much in the way of redeeming myself, either.

...I tried really really hard for four or five months to make myself love this person.  I did love him, but not in a romantic sort of way.  I loved him like a best friend and I really didn't want to hurt him.  So I tried and tried to make myself love him for a really long time.  I loved spending time with him, but I felt like I was lying to him and myself and I was suffocating in the relationship.  The more he realized I was slipping away, the more he tried to tighten his hold on me...it would get to the point where he would talk about us getting married and having kids and how he'd stay home with the kids if I wanted a career and how many years after college we should wait until we got married...on and on and on.  I don't know about you, but when I was fourteen, marriage was the farthest thing from my mind.  (I was a feminist, remember?)  It probably should have been pretty clear to the both of us that something wasn't right when we had been dating for several months and never once kissed. (yeah, I know.  Big red truck.)

At the same time that I was getting freaked out by the much too mature relationship I was in, the more time I was spending time with John.  We both did Knowledge Bowl and tennis together and we both rode the same bus.  So, there would often be about an hour after practice of either one where we would have to sit and wait for the bus...we would just talk.  About anything and everything.  We would laugh together.  We would share food.  We would tell each other things we never told anyone else--not even our closest same sex friends.  I felt completely open and safe with him.  Somewhere along the line I finally came to grips with myself and realized that it was more than just a little spark between us--I was falling in love with him.  Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to actually fall in love with someone at the age of fifteen (I had just turned fifteen when I realized that I was in love with him--which reminds me of a fun fact: John and I are five days apart exactly--same year and everything. I am five days older than him and he never ceases to point out to me that he is married to an "older woman").  But I did.  

I had been trying for a couple of months to salvage my relationship to my boyfriend and make myself love him, to no avail.  My friends constantly told me to dump him because I wasn't happy with him.  I just kept picturing in my head the pain and betrayal I would cause one of my best friends.  But prom was quickly approaching (a little over a month away) and I felt it would be really unkind of me to go to prom with him knowing I was going to break up with him.  So, I did the right thing, and I ended it.  But here is where you will think I am truly awful: I broke up with him in a note.  (Yeah, it was that bad.)  I sent him home with a note that ended it.  I felt truly wretched.  You have to remember that I was just barely fifteen, and I had never been in an actual relationship before--let alone broken up with anyone.  I thought that if I did it that way it would be easier for him...he wouldn't have to look into the face of the monster that was breaking his heart.  I thought it would be a clean break for him...that he could move on sooner.  And a little bit of it was that I was afraid...I didn't want to have to tell him to his face...part of me was afraid that if I did it to his face that I wouldn't be able to go through with it in the end--it would be too hard to hurt someone I really did care about.  I didn't talk to him for several days because I was having a hard time keeping myself from taking it all back and just making myself try harder.  This was probably one of the worst things I have ever done, and I am in no way proud of it.  I wish I had been mature enough to tell him to his face; to give him an explanation.  He deserved that.  But I didn't, and I can't change that.  Luckily it didn't take very long for him to forgive me and for us to become friends again.  

After I broke up with the boyfriend, I was sad, but more than anything I felt free.  I knew it was the right decision but it didn't make it any easier.  I think John was surprised that I broke up with the boyfriend, but it was what he had been hoping for all along.  We ended up going to a dance together (a small dance--not the prom) a couple of weeks later.  We talked on the phone and over e-mail a lot and then one day I got an e-mail from him asking me out (trust me, this became a pattern).  Of course, I said "yes" and we started dating.  We were great for a couple of months.  Dating your best friend in the whole wide world is seriously the best feeling ever.  :)  

When we had been dating for about a month we both started feeling the pressure from our friends (we had the same group of friends--a mixture of guys and girls that we're still best friends with today though we're all spread out across the country) to finally kiss.  Now, for some background...at this point, John had never kissed anyone (I'm still the only girl he has ever kissed, which is actually pretty sweet).  Technically, I had.  I say "technically" because the only other kiss I had was a boy who gave me a really quick peck on my lips after band practice in the band room in the seventh grade.  It was so quick and the memory so fuzzy, I'm not even sure it actually happened.  (It is quite possible that I am delusional enough to think it happened when it didn't...)  So, in all honesty, John's first kiss was pretty much my first kiss too.  At least that is what it felt like to me. :)  (So, if you don't count the barely there peck from a guy I don't even talk to anymore, then I've only ever kissed John, which is how I like to think of it).  As you can imagine, this was a really big deal.  We started avoiding our friends after school so they couldn't pester us about it anymore--or so we thought.  It was a nice sunny warm day--only a week or two left in our freshman year of high school--and John was walking me outside to my bus (we were too young to drive).  He finally gets up the courage to kiss me...he leans over...he closes his eyes...my heart is about to jump out of my chest...and as his lips are just making contact with mine...

...My best friend (the same girl he asked out on 9/11) yells "Oh my gosh they're kissing!" as she comes running over.  Our lips made contact, but it was probably the briefest and most embarrassing kiss in the history of kisses.  *sigh*  John still blames her for messing up his first kiss--though trust me, we have another "first kiss" later on and it doesn't go very well either and there was no one else around, so I'm not too sure how well that excuse can really hold up. :)

We dated for the rest of the summer--seeing each other pretty much every week and going on group dates or going swimming together.  We would talk on the phone for hours.  We told each other we loved each other, though I'm not sure how much thought went into that proclamation for either of us at that age...we were really young and we both had a lot of growing up to do, which pretty much led to our breakup.  Everything was great through the summer and then school started. (Duh duh duh--sorry, that just popped into my head...foreshadow alert!!)  We went from being great to avoiding each other once classes started.  I think it was awkward to go back to school and to be in a relationship when all of our friends were single.  We just really weren't sure how we should act around each other.  So, John ended it.  I think deep down I knew it was going to end and that it was meant to end then, but I was still shocked and hurt all the same.  I really did care about him, and I knew it ran deeper than any of the other relationships I saw in high school.  I was just too young and immature to really understand much about it or what it meant.  

Neither of us seemed really happy about...it was kind of like we resigned ourselves to the fact that it was beyond our control.  I like to think now that God was doing us a favor by having us break up then so that we could both grow up a little and find out who we were. He was sparing us from ruining a really good thing when we weren't ready to handle it.  We both remained friends and hung out with the same group of friends.  Neither of us really dated anybody.  I had a few times where I thought I liked a guy but really just ended up liking them more as a good friend than anything else.  John was always at the back of my mind.  Strangely enough John and I always sort of ended up going to dances together and even the dances where we went alone, we ended up dancing together exclusively.  We would ride together sometimes to group movie nights and talk over e-mail or the phone at times.  Basically we just took time to grow up without all the responsibility of trying to maintain a relationship at the same time.  I had a rough time my sophomore year of high school and was probably suffering from depression though I never really got it checked out.  John was the one who noticed and who worried about me.  He would ask if I was okay and I would lie, but he never really believed me.  Junior year, things got better.  I'm not sure what had happened, but I grew out of it.  I embraced life, grew up, and started discovering the kind of person I was.  John did the same.  Even though we weren't together, I can still remember John at pretty much every major event in those years.  :)

Flash forward to the spring of our junior year of high school.  So, we had been going to dances together all year.  We had been in knowledge bowl together and this was the year that John was the Captain of the team and we were doing really good. We ended up qualifying to go to State that year (which hadn't happened in many many years for our school).  We were a really small team too--only like seven players--so that was a really big deal.  (We ended up being number one in districts, regionals, and state our senior year and were invited to Nationals in Chicago--our team was unstoppable.)  This also meant that John and I were spending a lot of time together again and I was finally at a point in my life that I felt ready to take on a serious relationship.  Neither John nor I had dated anyone since we had broken up and that spark just never seemed to go away between us.  On the way back from State, we were all in a big suburban van driving back across the state to get home.  Everyone had been talking about Prom and joking around.  I was sitting in the very front with our coach (a really profound mentor of mine that I still really greatly respect).  John was sitting right behind me in the middle section.  One of our guy friends was sitting next to John in the middle seat and was complaining about wanting to ask a girl he liked to prom but being too afraid.  I was trying to persuade him to just do it when he mouthed at me "I'll do it if you finally ask him" (him being John since he was one of the few friends privy to the information that I was interested in dating John again).  So, if you haven't realized by now that I can be a very confident, straight-forward person (unless it means hurting someone), then you haven't been paying attention. Without missing a beat--seriously, the words had barely been mouthed--I turned my head to the left, looked John straight in the eye, and said, "Want to go to the prom with me?".  Every single person in the car stopped talking and looked at us.  Which meant that John turned beet red and was utterly speechless.  Seeing his discomfort, I quickly added, "you don't have to tell me right now...just think about it and then get back to me".  I then just smiled, turned back around, and looked straight ahead at the road.  It took a minute or two for the conversations to resume and I could see in my peripheral vision that my teacher kept looking at me with a stifled grin. 

After a very long week of not hearing from John (he had been really busy with Boy Scout and church stuff and he did this program where he took classes at the college instead of at high school during the day, so we didn't see each other for a week since Knowledge Bowl was over), he finally gave me a thumbs up for prom (he seemed to be pretty nonchalant about the whole thing to me, but I later learned that he had put a lot of thought into the decision and realized that he knew it would probably lead to us getting back together and he that was what he wanted--he was really excited & nervous too).  I was really elated, but I tried not to get too psyched into thinking that going to prom meant that we would be getting back together--because it didn't necessarily mean that.  I wore a purple gown and he wore a nice black suit with a tie.  He brought me a corsage.  He drove and we carpooled with some other friends and their dates.  We went to dinner with a bunch of other couples in our group of friends and then got pictures at a really nice park in the city where our prom was held.  After that we went to our prom together.  We had a really nice evening together.  We danced, we laughed, we had a great time.  

The best moment for me of the evening was one of the simplest moments ever and to anybody else wasn't all that exciting.  But it is what I remember most vividly about that evening.  I was sitting on a side bench during one of the hip hop songs near the end, resting my aching feet (I despise heels).  John came and sat down next to me, and we were just sitting there watching the other kids dance.  John reached over and took my hand and in doing so it forced me to move up right against him.  I leaned my head against his arm/shoulder and without missing a beat, he laid his head down on top of my head.  It was seriously the simplest of moments, but it was so special for me.  It doesn't always have to be grandiose moments that make your heart flutter--like professing your love on top of a coffee cart (come on, no fans of The OC out there??).  It just felt like we were two puzzle pieces that belonged together and were finally connecting as it should be.  (It wasn't until we were engaged or just barely married that I learned that he also remembered that moment and thought about it from time to time.) Two weeks later we exchanged year books and at the end of his comment, he wrote "P.S. check your e-mail when you get home".  I'm sure you can guess what was in the e-mail--a message asking me to be his girlfriend...again (I told you the e-mail thing would become a pattern, didn't I?).  Sure it wasn't the most romantic gesture in the history of asking people out, but it still means something to me.  Plus, it always makes me laugh a little whenever I read my junior yearbook.  :)  

That summer was pretty much the summer that we really fell in love.  The sort of love that is more mature and deeper and lasting.  We would talk on the phone for hours, usually into the wee hours of the morning--until we finally gave in to our desperate need for sleep or until my phone died (our house phone had seriously weak batteries).  It was like we got to know each other all over again.  We shared things to each other that we'd never told anyone else.  We went on dates and spent as much time together as possible.  We told each other we loved each other and it wasn't a huge over-the-moon moment...it was more like we were simply saying out loud something that we had taken for granted to be true for a while.  It was like saying "the ocean is blue" or the "grass is green"; we were merely stating something we knew to be true.  It just was.  And that made us happy.  :) 

Now, if you thought the last story of our first kiss was juicy, then this one you'll also enjoy.  We said we loved each other before we kissed this time around.  Which made our second "first kiss" have a lot more meaning.  We had just gone on a date and John drove me home and when he was walking me to my door, he stopped me and it was really dark so we couldn't make out each others faces.  Basically in all of our nervousness (because surprisingly enough we had only kissed a handful of times the first time we dated, and they were all quick kisses...and neither of had kissed since) we tried to kiss each other too quickly and completely missed.  I think I caught him somewhere near his ear, and he kissed air.  We tried again and I think I kissed somewhere near the top of his nose or maybe his eyebrow?  So, after a couple of disastrous attempts, I got really embarrassed (I pretty much projected the entire failure on to myself) and ran into my house.  Yes, that is right. I left him standing out there in the dark with a mumbled "goodbye" and an "I love you" and then ran inside my house.  (It is truly astounding that we ever managed to kiss each other, let alone get married, because seriously how damaging is that to a guy's ego when your first kiss in a few years results in the girl fleeing to her house??).  Coincidentally, this "first kiss" attempt coincided with a camping trip where I ended up being away with my family for several days.  Neither of attempted to call the other one because both of us were embarrassed and worried that we had failed miserably (I thought I was destined to be a single bitter shrew).  Finally, after a week of silence one of us called the other (oddly I can't remember which one of us) and we both were relieved to find out that we still very much loved the other and actually wanted to attempt to kiss again at some other point.  The next kiss was much, much better.  We stopped trying to force a kiss and stopped focusing on all the "what-ifs" and it just sort of happened.  It was brief and sweet.  And it ended with a smile. :)  

Our senior year was a whirlwind of dances and dates and having fun with our friends.  We did break up for five days in January of our senior year.  There had been a lot of drama going on amongst a lot of people and we sort of got caught up in it and John ended it with me.  There was a lot of hurt involved and neither of us was happy the entire time we were apart.  I remember feeling like part of me was dying.  In the end, John realized his mistake and we reconciled.  In a way it was one of the hardest times I've ever had to go through but at the same time it really put into perspective for us what was important and what we wanted out of our relationship.  It really let us come to a deeper knowledge of how much we truly cared for one another.  It was a turning point in our relationship.  From then on we were pretty much inseparable.  Our senior prom was a lot of fun with our friends, and it was also the night that I realized that I was going to marry him someday.  :) (And no we weren't involved in any of the cliche after-prom activities; it was a very innocent and sweet evening that basically resulted in me falling in love with him all over again.)

We especially became inseparable after we graduated from high school.  We spent the entire summer with our friends and each other (I'm not exaggerating either--except for sleeping and working, we were together every minute).  Once all of our friends left for college and we were the only ones left going to the same college together, we spent even more time together, since we weren't also spending time with our friends.   We were both in college together and we knew we wanted to get married at some point after college and we talked about it from time to time, but nothing concrete.  Well, the biggest turning point in our entire relationship was that John introduced me to his Church--the Catholic Church.  

He had taken me to my first Catholic mass my senior year of high school (long story short: I had been going to a non-denominational Protestant church of my own volition since I was about ten years old; always very interested in Jesus, but a little suspicious of the Catholic Church).  I ended up having a complete spiritual transformation the moment I walked into the church for mass.  It was like the entire world had shifted on its axis and now everything made more sense to me.  I could feel it in my heart, in my soul, in my mind.  I knew I had found the place I had been searching for my entire childhood, spiritually speaking.  I just felt like I was home, where I belonged.  So, after careful consideration and a lot of research and questions (all the while John was extremely patient and understanding, and wasn't pushing me to become Catholic at all--he would've married me regardless), I decided to sign up for the RCIA classes (Rite of the Christian Initiation of Adults--basically a series of classes that lead up to Easter in which you take a spiritual journey to decide whether you want to be baptized into the Catholic Church and to prepare you for it) at his parish church.  Those classes made us grow so much more than anything in our entire history.  We started to grow together spiritually and it was a stronger bond than any bond we had created together.  

We were headed home from one of the RCIA classes that first fall after we graduated, and I was rambling on about something fascinating from the class that had grabbed my attention.  In the middle of a sentence, John cut me off with a question,  "I know we have talked about getting married after we graduate from college.  What if I asked you to marry me sooner than that?"  To which I replied, "How much sooner were you thinking?"  (Inside I was elated and utterly shocked)  "I was thinking...this summer."  (SERIOUSLY?!?)  "I would love to marry you this summer."  And he responded by holding my hand and then saying, "Okay.  But this isn't my proposal--you'll have to wait for that.".  :) (Knowing that a guy is going to propose to you sometime in the immediate future but not knowing when or how is seriously nerve-wracking, by the way).  

Another turning point came for us that November, between that conversation and our actual proposal (trust me, we will get to the proposal).  We went to a couples retreat at the church led by a Catholic missionary of sorts.  He was truly beyond incredible.  The retreat was meant for married couples but the parish priest (whom I LOVE and miss terribly all 1000 miles away from him and the parish) invited us and another serious couple from the RCIA class to the retreat as well (now some of our best friends, and married right after us).  After a dinner and a talk by the missionary, we all made our way to the chapel, where there was Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament.  The missionary led us through some prayers and then asked each couple to come forward together, place our hands on the monstrance, and make a promise that we start praying together every night.  Now, there are two important details you need to understand about this: 1) I was only two months into the RCIA classes and I had no idea what a monstrance was, and 2) I hadn't made up my mind yet if I wanted to join the Catholic Church--I was waiting for that moment when I would realize that I was missing out by not joining.  

So, with a little trepidation, John and I made our way to the front of the church as all the rest of the couples had done.  We placed our hands on the monstrance together and in the most sincerest words I can use, I knew I was touching God.  I knew this as clearly and as profoundly as the thought "I exist".  There are no words to describe the feeling...it was as if I had gone my whole life thinking I knew what it meant to be happy and complete...and in a single instant my entire world was thrown upside down.  I was surrounded by and touching and sensing God all at one time.  He was there and He was more real to me than real.  It is a feeling that extends beyond human comprehension or language, so for me to adequately describe it to someone else is nearly impossible.  It was like a fire was consuming me, but not a painful fire...like a passion...an all-consuming power and feeling of love and hope and peace all rolled into one.  It was the most beautiful feeling in the world (the only other powerful experience that great was the night of my baptism when I felt completely filled with God and light and love and hope and purity--also really difficult to explain; another post perhaps).  Once we had finished with our pledge, we removed our hands from the monstrance and immediately the moment was over.  And I had never felt so empty in my entire life...like I had been filled and completed in ways I had never imagined and then every last piece of brightness and beauty had been sucked out of me.  It was like having your eyes filled with colors and shapes and then in an instant complete darkness and nothing.  It was like losing the ability to see, but knowing that there is still something out there worth seeing, but you just can't quite reach it.  Knowing beauty existed out there and wanting to grasp a hold of it.  Once I let go of the monstrance, I began to weep.  My body heaved with sobs, tears streamed down my face, and I knelt in prayer.  

I was dazed and a little confused when we were headed home afterward.  I tried to act as casual as I could, and asked John: "So...what exactly is a monstrance?"  Then he patiently explained to me that a monstrance holds the Eucharist--so basically, it held Jesus.  My mouth literally fell open.  When I explained to John what I had felt, it all suddenly came together for me.  It made sense for me in my mind, my heart, and my soul.  That was the night that I knew without a doubt that I was going to become a Catholic, because the thought of living a life anymore without the Eucharist was unthinkable and unimaginable.  John also shared an experience he had with the  Eucharist with me as well.  It was about a year before this event; he had been at a teen retreat with the same missionary and each of the teens were encouraged to spend an hour alone with the Blessed Sacrament in prayer.  John said he was looking at the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance one second and the next he was looking at Jesus sitting on the altar looking at him.  Not in a real physical form like you or me, but he knew it was Jesus and he couldn't keep his eyes off of him.  And afterward he walked to his car and just wept.  It was one of the most powerful spiritual experiences in his life.  And it changed his entire lookout on his faith.  

Okay...so, now back to the proposal.  :)  I just thought it was important for you to understand that a big part of our relationship is our faith and those events helped to bring our relationship together in a deeper way than anything we had achieved just between us.  Praying together as a couple has strengthened us in many ways, and we are extremely thankful to have that together.  John proposed in December, a few days before Christmas when he was about to go visit his grandparents with the rest of his family.  We would be spending Christmas apart, so we were planning to exchange presents a few days early.  John had to work until about 9 o'clock that night, but he came over to my house right afterward.  He was still in his work uniform, but adorable as ever. :)  He gave me a rose and told me it was part of my Christmas present.  (A normal person would have started getting suspicious, but I'm the clueless one, remember?)  We exchanged presents--he gave me a wooden crucifix made in Jerusalem (it now hangs above our bed) and a beautiful rosary  (that I still use today--he gave it to me to replace the one he had given me the previous Christmas and was stolen when my purse had been stolen).  I gave him some board games and other things that I don't really remember (to be fair, a major event happened that night).  After we were done exchanging gifts, I was picking up wrapping paper and putting it into a bag, when John (who was acting really nervous) said, "Wait a second, I have another present for you."  (Again, clueless.)  He reached over to his coat and started rummaging through his side pocket--it still wasn't registering with me--and he pulls out a jewelry box.  He slides off my bed, gets on one knee on the floor in front of me, looks up at me with his amazing green eyes (side note: whenever I pictured my future husband when I was a young kid, I always pictured a guy with green eyes--now I know why), and asks, "Jess, will you marry me?"  

I didn't say "yes".  Instead, I pretty much threw myself on him and gave him the biggest kiss and almost knocked him over in my excitement.  After he recovered from the shock of it all, he laughed, and then asked, "So, is that a 'yes'?"  (He pretty much doesn't let me live down the fact that I forgot to say 'yes'.)  He put the ring on my finger--a very beautiful simple thin white gold band with a round cut diamond and one smaller diamond to the side of it.  It was his mom's engagement ring, so it had a lot of meaning behind it.  I still absolutely adore it and wear it every day with my wedding ring (a plain white gold band).  :)  We immediately went out to the living room and announced to my parents that we were engaged--they were ecstatic (they adore John, so I wasn't surprised).  We spent the rest of the night cuddling with huge grins on our faces, discussing what date we wanted to get married.  

A couple of weeks before our wedding, John and I were looking through a box of photos of his childhood at his parents' house.  All of a sudden, in the midst of all the photos, I found a picture of John...and me.  When we were six or seven years old (remember how I told you he moved here when he was 12???).  So, it was right before they were moving to Indonesia (his dad was already overseas starting his job and setting up a living situation) and they were staying with his grandparents.  He was going to a school in a neighboring small town and joined a soccer team with his cousin (best man)--the same soccer team I was on.  We had no clue that entire time.  And the craziest part is that the one picture we found of him from that soccer team is just him and me on a soccer field together (sporting our bright orange jerseys, if I might add).  It was one of the most bizarre things to find your little child face in a picture you never expected in a zillion years...it was kind of a cool confidence booster too... especially a couple of weeks before our wedding to have something like that happen to us.  To learn that we had been continuously meeting each other throughout our lives until the right moment when we were seventeen and ready to fall in love for real and eventually commit ourselves to marriage at nineteen. :)

Seven months after our engagement we had a beautiful wedding with lots and lots of family and friends.  Neither of us had a bachelor or bachelorette party--we both had the same group of friends so we had a combined campfire/BBQ down by a lake and played board games together.  It was a lot of fun!  We had a nice rehearsal and rehearsal dinner with our families and wedding parties.  We were married on a Saturday at 2pm.  It wasn't an over-the-top-wedding: I made my own invitations and a family member of John's helped me make the bouquets.  My parents bought my wedding dress--a white dress with a lilac colored band at the top.  The colors for the wedding was lilac and white.  We had the ceremony and reception at our small little parish church and the same priest who baptized me exactly three months to the day before our wedding on Easter Vigil was the witness to our wedding vows and provided the sacrament of the Eucharist in our wedding (a wedding mass).  We had so many friends that we chose to keep it simple and only have a best man and a maid of honor so we wouldn't have to choose who got to participate and who didn't.  My maid of honor was the very same best friend who had dated John for a week way back when in freshman year (it really is quite funny in retrospect).  John's best man was his cousin who he had grown up with and they were close.  

Our reception was really nice. We had lots and lots of loved ones there.  A friend of ours photographed our wedding.  My parents and some friends of the family had prepared a ton of food for the reception and we had music for our first dance and everything.  My cousin's wife made our wedding cake for our wedding present--it was a vegan chocolate cake with raspberry filling.  She made the cake to look like a basket with real purple flowers sticking out of it.  I had no idea what the cake was going to look like before the wedding day, because I told her I trusted her enough to surprise me, and she did an amazing job!!  The cake was served on a real sheet of rock on a stand.  We smashed cake in each others faces (see the picture above).  We danced, we kissed, we smiled (a lot), we spent time with all of our loved ones.  The only thing we regret doing is not actually tasting any of the food except for the frosting that was smashed on our faces at the entire reception.  In the end, we drove off in a Model T that belonged to a family member of John's. :)  

We spent that night in a nice hotel near our homes.  We ended up going out to eat Chinese food because we hadn't eaten anything at the reception and we'd both been too nervous to eat any breakfast.  I bought a coloring book (seriously, I'm like a little kid) and we went swimming.  We had a really great night. ;)  No more details than that are needed except that one of our proudest accomplishments as a couple (our son is number one) is that we waited until we were married before we had sex.  Obviously this is a profoundly personal decision on our parts and I'm not going to talk about it further, but it is something that was significant for us.  It was truly beautiful to b able to share that part of ourselves with each other.  Whatever decision you do make as couple concerning intimacy, it should always be one that makes you both profoundly happy.  It shouldn't matter what anyone else thinks; it should be a decision that you both make because it is important to both of you.  Regardless of the decision.   

So, that is the incredibly long story of how we met, became best friends, fell in love, grew up, fell in love again, got our hearts broken only to realize that we were insanely in love and insanely right for each other, place our relationship in a foundation of Jesus Christ, get engaged, and finally tie the knot (I told you it was long, complicated story).  For our honeymoon we drove down the Oregon coast and camped; it was really pretty.  It is still one of our favorite places to vacation to this day. :)  Three months after we were married, we were pregnant.  It wasn't exactly planned, but we weren't explicitly trying not to get pregnant either.  Either way, it ended up being the best thing that has ever happened to us.  Having a child together has been the biggest bonding experience for us.  Sure, there are tough days, and we aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but we love our son, we love each other, we trust in God, and every day we try to be our best selves for each other and our little family (I didn't say we succeeded every day, but we try).  What more can I thank God for than that?  I'm married to my soul mate and best friend and he has helped me to create the most beautiful expression of our love--Johnny.  Even after three and a half years of marriage, I am still insanely excited to grow old with him and I'm sure we'll be telling the story of how we met and fell in love to our children and grandchildren for many years to come.   

    

(The model T was a sweet ride)