The Story of Us

We're on a trip this week to celebrate our anniversary. We've made it seven years. I think the people that had a good first few years of marriage really don't understand when I say seven years. We're not celebrating seven years with a pat on the back and a lovely dinner. Just in case you didn't know, we are jumping up and down in crazy excitement because we are the victors over a bad start and have defeated the curse that wanted us to fail. We have made it SEVEN years when people thought we wouldn't make it one year.

So this week let me share with you our story.

It all started sitting in the middle of nowhere, TX. I was going to college and living with my dad in the boondocks of east Texas because I was too broke to rent an apartment.  A few of my friends were over one day and as usual, we were playing online, looking at dating sites. Honestly we didn't look just to find someone to date, we looked to make fun of the people who had mullets that wanted to serenade you with their own special songs about their dog dying and dine you with beer and fried chicken. That's why we looked, for laughs, but I think that in the back of our minds real hope always existed.

As we were trolling the ads we saw one for a pretty good looking guy who said he was moving to Houston from Louisiana and wanted to find friends there to connect with. I was five hours away from Houston and had no hope of ever meeting him but my Texas pride swelled bigger than any hope and I sent him a quick email to tell him how much he would love Texas. I was born on Texas Independence Day, I am as true of a Texan as you can find.

To my surprise, he responded and mentioned that his parents lived thirty minutes away from where I was living. He asked if I had ever been to Longview, where they lived. That gave us plenty to talk about because I was raised in Longview and had lived there for 18 years.

We slowly started talking back and forth via email, first every few days and then slowly but surely, several times a day. It turns out that his mom worked at my doctors office and both his parents were addicted to the restaurant where I had worked for two years. Chances are that we had met but no one knows for sure.

It was fun to talk to this guy so many miles away who told me all about his move to Houston, sent pictures of his company's new office building, told stories about his mom jumping in the pool fully clothed after helping him move during the summer. We also talked about our pasts and how we were raised. It's easy to talk deep with someone that you have never met and you don't have to worry about them spreading your secrets around town. If he choose to tell everyone my secrets in Houston, they would all still be five hours away.

Then the email arrived that said he was coming to Longview to visit his parents, would I like to go on a date with him? Things got a little more serious, now we were meeting.