Happy 10 Years!

It’s amazing that ten years have come and gone since Alex and I first met.  I still remember our first “date” on December 21, 2003.  I was pleasantly surprised being that he wasn’t at all what I had expected.  It’s a miracle there was ever a second date since I felt the need to talk his ears off because it turned out that I really did like him in person.  However, since I met him without having high expectations for this date, I didn’t put much effort into my personal appearance (makeup and outfit).  I guess love finds you when you least expect it and aren’t looking.  Let me explain.

He and I had been talking online via hotornot.com (which looked nothing like it does now), and he wanted to meet.  I had had a few not-so-great experiences with meeting guys in person from the internet and really didn’t want to.  I was pretty much over the whole dating thing for the time being.  But he was persistent, and I finally relented just to shut him up.  We met in Cullman in the WDG grocery store parking lot, and I immediately liked him – and immediately regretted not putting some effort forth.  We went to Dairy Queen and ate dinner and talked.  Well, mostly I talked.  Back then, I was a nervous talker, so to compensate for my lack of effort on my personal appearance, I thought I’d just charm him with conversation.  No, not really.  LOL  I was just a nervous talker.

When he tells the story, he says he thought I would never shut up – and I am still quite talkative to this day, though it’s not nervous chatter.  He’s stuck with that since I love to talk.  HAHA!  So, to cut the night short and to spare his ears, he made up a story about helping his grandfather move some stuff around (late at night).  He was living with his grandfather at the time, and he said his grandfather was a night owl and preferred doing stuff then.  I was oblivious to the lie at the time (and would later realize HE was the night owl).  He was ready to get out of there.  And yes, we were both able to joke about this a couple years later.

Fortunately for me, his original New Year’s Eve plans fell through, and I was pretty much the only option left.  Sad, I know, but everything worked itself out.  He’d been invited to come hang out in Birmingham with my friend and me for New Year’s.  The friend wound up being sick and couldn’t go out, and as I said, his other plans fell through, so he decided to hang out with me.  And from there, the rest is history.  Thankfully, I wasn’t as talkative this second date, so he took a liking to me. 😉

Judge all you’d like about how we met, but if it hadn’t been for that website, I would have never crossed paths with him, being that he lived an hour and a half from me, and I never had reasons to go up that way (Cullman was halfway for both of us).  And ten years later, my love for him now is stronger than it was when I first fell in love with him the summer of 2004.  There have been hundreds of wonderful memories created throughout these ten years.  Riding around his hometown, looking for stuff to do on nights I’d visit, listening to the radio (back when radio stations were decent!).  Hearing some of those songs today still touches my heart and reminds me of the infancy stage of our relationship.  Our first trip out-of-state to see Linkin Park in Atlanta in March 2004.  The first time we each told the other that we loved them.  Those times when you feel so emotionally close, it’s hard to describe the love you feel glowing in your heart.  Being silly and goofing off to the point that it makes the other laugh.  Moving into our first apartment together at the end of 2005, and then buying our first house together in August 2009.  Being able to sit on the sofa together for hours, talking about whatever pops into our minds.  Having someone there just to talk and share your life with when something incredible happens or when you’re going through a sad or rough patch in your life with other matters.  The list goes on and on and would take days for me to write.  It melts my heart just to see him smile at me.  I wouldn’t trade Alex for anyone!

And just like any couple, we’ve had our fair share of not-so-great moments.  We’ve had more than a few arguments over the stupidest things one could imagine.  I don’t know how many times we “broke up” in 2004-2005.  LOL  We’re both stubborn, so that doesn’t help some matters.  And we did separate for 4 months at the end of 2010 (which we don’t count) because I was incredibly stupid and naive about something else.  Any time I think about that time frame, I get incredibly sad thinking about the hurt I know I caused him, wishing I could undo that.  I regret the decisions I made back then – to an extent.  I say this because in a weird, twisted way, I think us being apart for 4 months helped each of us in so many ways.  I just wish the separation had been under different circumstances.  I cannot speak for Alex, but in the past 3-4 months, I have felt closer to him than I have ever felt in the past ten years.  Had we stayed together in 2010, we may have kept going to the point we hated each other and could no longer tolerate being in each others presence.  Obviously, I can’t know for sure if that would have happened or if the opposite would have been true: working things out and finally making it through everything.

I do know one thing.  When I showed up on his doorstep at the end of January 2011, I was beyond grateful that he didn’t slam the door in my face.  And today, as we celebrate 10 years together, I cannot begin to express how thankful I am to have him in my life.  Even though we still have our fusses over the stupidest things ever, those good moments we share far outweigh the bad, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything or anyone.  I love him with all my heart. <3

Here are a few pictures of us throughout the years.