Him

I met him at a party when I was in college. I don't even remember why my girlfriend and I went to this party. I only remember that there were many alumni from our college present at this party, and that we were not planning on staying very long because we were also due at a friend's birthday party. I also don't remember exactly when I noticed him. I know he was sitting next to me at a rowdy game of "I Never." What I remember was leaning against the back of a couch, waiting for my girlfriend, and he came up and started talking to me. We never made it to the birthday party.

I was wearing jeans, a left-over red shirt from the '80s (with the trademark '80s funky paisley design), and red Ropers. He was wearing shorts and a black t-shirt. We both wore glasses at the time. He was clean-cut, had short hair and was nicely shaven (yes, my friends, this was the day before the earrings, the tattoo, and the beard!). He came up to me and said, "So what do you think of Stevie Ray Vaughn dying?" And this native Austinite shared her despair, and the despair of thousands of others, over the tragic and sudden death of her beloved blues star less than one month before. I shared with him about the last time I had seen SRV, on the opposite bank of Town Lake from the stage, my friend so excited to cross the street and see the guitar player that he left my car door wide open, something we did not discover until we returned to the car at the end of the show. I asked him where he was from, and the small Texas panhandle town where he lived was the same town where my family would spend the night on the way to our vacation in Colorado, lodging at the Red Carpet Inn and dining at the local K-Bob's. It's possible that I was in that small town the day Elvis died. I was all of 20 years old when we met. He was 23, out of school, and working at a local Air Force base.

At that point in my life, I had recently emerged from the fog of a miserable heartbreak, in which a boy two years earlier made a decision about his life which could not possibly include me (a whole other blog entry someday). I remember just weeks before I had told my girlfriend that I would really like to meet a nice guy. Sure, I had dated some in college, but most of those guys were, well, dating imbeciles. On the night that I met him, I remember vividly a force that was present, stronger than the two of us, that said "This is what I can offer you."

That fated night took place fifteen years ago today. A year later we moved in together. A few years after that we got married. In blog-land, he is referred to affectionately as the "sperm donor," although he is so much more (although lately, I've taken to calling him "my baby's daddy" because that sounds much more ghetto!).

Marriage has not always been easy, as no one bothered to hand us a manual when we started out. There have been many ups, and some terrible, devastating, and painful lows. At one point, I nearly threw it all away. But I hung in there; or rather, HE hung in there, HE never gave up on me, even though I had nearly given up on myself. And for that, I am eternally in love with him. There is nothing more I want in this world than to wake up next to him tomorrow morning. The feeling that I am carrying a little part of him inside of me, no matter how psycho it sounds, is the most thrilling and exciting feeling I have ever experienced.

Tomorrow we go for our first sonogram, we get to see our baby for the first time. Hopefully Kim will let us use her scanner this weekend so we can post the photos on the blog!

We still have those clothes, my left-over '80s shirt now starting to look a bit vintage, and his black t-shirt, now faded. And I still have those red Ropers. There are certain things in life you can never throw away.