30 Day Blogging Challenge - Day 1 "Your current relationship"

I completely stole this idea from a friend's blog and I think it is fantastic. I have been neglecting my blog for too long and have just managed to get back into it and this will do it. It's a challenge and I am up for it.

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Day 1 "current relationship"


Aaron and I met in May, 2007 at a friend's graduation party. I was in charge of the planning it and she wanted a theme graduation party, so we went with the 80's theme. I hit up the Goodwill store and found an awfully 80's outfit to wear. Bright orange pants, a black sequined top, a huge colorful scrunchee for my hair, and sequined slide on shoes. Awesome right??? I looked like I just stepped out "The Wedding Singer." Aaron had met the graduate at a bar a few weeks prior and she had invited him to the party. I never met him until that day. He and a friend showed up and as the hostess, I introduced myself to him and his friend. Little did I know that this interaction was going to change the course of my life forever.

We started chatting and found out that there were some serious common topics for us. Now the tricky part is that: I had just become legally separated from my ex-husband. (A whole different story for a whole different post - believe me!) so I wasn't looking for anything at all. I thought he is really hot (seriously, he is...DAMN) but didn't think anything more of it. We friendly flirted, I thought he would ask me for my phone number - but alas, it did not happen. I left the party later that night to my brand new apartment without a phone number but feeling pretty good about things (This would become a long-running joke amongst us that I was interested and he was oblivious!)

About a month later, I met up with some friends at a bar for drinks. I had been enjoying my new situation of self-exploration. Things were still a touch hostile with the ex but we were working on it since we had so many friends that were mutual. I walk in the bar, and there is he at the table with all of my friends! Surprise of all surprises. Of course the only seat was right next to him (I found out much later it was kind of a set up by our friends because they knew we had gotten along so well at the graduation party). We spent that evening chatting and laughing, we had so much in common.

Unfortunately, as there is with legal separations there was some drama.

My ex was there with us (like I said we were trying to be friendly) and he was struggling with seeing me chatting up someone that was not him. I went up to get a drink and he pulled me outside to lecture me on how I was behaving (mind you, nothing had happened aside from laughing and drinking). He said he didn't think it was appropriate for me to being hitting on someone else right in front of him. DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA ensued. He ended up being pulled away from me by a friend to leave because he was in my face screaming and carrying on like a fool. Aaron, had no idea what had been going on (seriously, how do tell someone that? especially when you have only met for a total of an hour over 2 different times?) and he comes out to see what was going on since our entire table of friends had emptied out into the parking lot with the commotion. I am off the side of the parking lot, crying because I HATE public fighting and I felt like a beat-down puppy and Aaron comes over to see if I am all right. I spill my guts as mascara is running down my face to explain the short-short version of what was going on, that I felt horrible that he got pulled into the drama when I really wanted to avoid it all if possible. Then he does the most amazing thing...he grabs my chin and picks it up to look him in the eyes and kisses me. Just like you see in those cheesy romantic comedies, I had one of those moments.

We spent 12 hours together after that, we talked for hours and hours. I got no sleep that night whatsoever and couldn't have cared less! There has been no looking back since then.

When I went home in the morning, I called my friend Sandi and told her I just met "the one." I had no idea I could get hit like a ton of bricks like that before and really only thought that kind of relationship happened in those movies that girls love. I had no idea it was true and real, but damn - it is real.

We moved in together in April of the following year, he proposed in July of 2008 and we were married in June 2009. We just knew things were different, we knew from the very beginning that this was like nothing we had either ever experienced in our lives, and despite some of the friends' opinions that we were moving too fast, nothing ever felt more right.


There are so many things that I love about him, this is just a small sampling:

1. He is unwaveringly optimistic about our chances of being a family - this makes me love him and get frustrated with him from time to time.

2. He is brilliant - he is so unbelievably smart and we have such wonderful conversations about topics that make both of us think to a whole different level of intensity. His memory for things and specifics of events in our life is wonderful. He will remember a conversation we had once and make it into something amazing. Example: We had a conversation about how I had not been to the zoo since moving to the St. Louis area in a random conversation. He planned a whole date around surprising me to take me to the zoo for our first date! Mind you, we got lost because he was trying to keep it a secret, but that just makes it that much sweeter that he did that for me.

3. He is calm and collected when I feel like I am a firework about to explode. I love that, my brain works a million miles an hour thinking of all the "what ifs" and he is the one who keeps me from going completely off the deep end.

4. He is literally my best friend in the world. He is the first person I want to talk to about anything and everything under the sun. When I get good news/bad news/so-so news, he is the person I want to talk to about it.

5. He knows everything about me and all the chaos that has been my life at times and takes it all in stride. He knows my worst/best characteristics and loves me unconditionally. Not many men would take the news of the possibility of not having your own family within the first few weeks of dating without batting an eye at the idea, but ultimately telling me that no matter what, he wanted his life with me. There is a strength there that is astonishing to the core.