I have this friend that I used to work with at Fry's a loooooooooooooong time ago.Her name is Spammy!! Well, not really, and she would kick my behind if she knew I was calling her that in public and telling people that was her name...but she's not here right now, so, her name is Spammy. I have known her for about 8 years now. {WHOAAA!} Spammy has a good friend from her home town named Jennifer. They have known each other since they were kids, the better part of their whole lives.
So one day....I was minding my own business...chatting with my friend Spammy on her FB page about how she had the best boyfriend ever and I wanted the best boyfriend/girlfriend ever when some chick popped into our back and forth chatting and said she WAS the best GIRLFRIEND ever and she lived in NY!!! I thought that was HILARIOUS!! And totally out there and just great!!!
We had a couple more "conversations" like that on Spammy's page before taking it a step further and initiating contact via...dun DUN dun....friend request. Soon after that we had our first "live" online chat. And shortly after that our first phone conversation. Before too long....we were racking up 100+ hours a month on the telephone JUST with each other. It was CRAZY!!! And I loved every minute of it.
We decided to meet-up in Virginia so that we could see if there was really something there or if it was going to turn out to just be a ROCKIN' friendship. I was soooo nervous driving from Atlanta to Lexington, VA to meet this awesome person - IN PERSON!!! I finally made it there -- and the first words this amazing woman said to me were, "Wow! You really ARE beautiful!!" I certainly did not feel it after 10 hours in the car and the horrible time I had had just GETTING there. But it was nice to hear nonetheless. We had an amazing "first date" and spent the entire day "getting to know" each other. We walked around town. We laughed. We talked. We rode in the car. We were quiet. It was such an amazing day!!
From our first meeting in VA, I knew that I was in love. I fell HARD!!!! And thankfully, since we were talking 100+ hours a month, never missing one single night to talk to each other, I knew that she was falling hard, too. Not to mention, our aforementioned common friend, was constantly reporting to each of us how much we were thinking of each other. My favorite quote from Spammy came through as a text one day, "I love that you guys love each other so much!"
I spent the best ten days EVER in Ithaca surrounding New Year's. I met her mother. And some of her friends. We went around town and she showed me the different waterfalls in the area. The slogan for the city is Ithaca is Gorges. teeeheeehee
In February, an amazing friend of mine called me up and said he loved seeing me so happy and that he wanted me to be able to go to Ithaca and see Jennifer for Valentine's Day. And he wanted to pay for it. I couldn't believe it. This is a friend that I have had since high school and he was just so elated that I had found someone that made me so very happy and he wanted me to be there. I wasn't able to go the week of V-Day but I did make it the week after that for another amazing trip and even MORE time with the woman that I KNEW was the love of my life. We talked about me and Lorelli moving up there. We talked about marriage. We talked about everything. We enjoyed time together. We saw a movie. We went to dinners. We shopped.
When I look back on that time it seems like we must have moved so swift from "meeting" to meeting to loving to needing. But, I remember being in the thick of it and feeling like time was dragging on so slowly between our visits together.
In March, she finally made her way to me in Atlanta. We drove home to Texas (we are both from there) and we stopped to get a picture at the state line. It was freezing cold and windy. And we stood there laughing about how we had both traveled to opposite ends of the country from where we started only to fall in love with someone from Texas!!!! She said some of the sweetest things I had ever heard on tv or in real life...and THEN...she got down on one knee and proposed!!! I cried. I smiled. I fell. She asked me to say yes....I did.
We had a big party while we were in Texas to announce our engagement. My family, her friends, my friends and some GOOD Italian food. Made for a wonderful night.
We decided Lorelli and I would move to New York in July. I never looked back. I was looking forward from that day on. I finally had found someone that I loved so much that I could only think of them. I found someone that I could actually envision a future with. I saw in her someone that I could grow old with. And so.....we moved. On my birthday. We left Atlanta at 4 a.m. and drove straight through, finally pulling into the driveway in Ithaca around 10 p.m.
We got married in Vermont on November 19, 2010. Exactly one year from our "first date." Jennifer, Lorelil, and I snuck away on a family vacation weekend. We got our marriage license. We got married. And then we told everyone in our family and friends that we had done it. It was perfect. It was small. It was intimate. And now I am forever sworn to this amazing woman, and she to me.
And I couldn't ask for anything or anyone else.
