In the Beginning.....

I had a couple of agendas in mind when I started writing this blog. It is a brag board, a diary, a release, and a story for Natalia to take with her when she has her own children someday. Eventually I will have these printed into a book for her. Being the egocentric humans that we naturally are, I know she will love reading about herself and her family.

It is with this understanding that I am writing the story of how Jeremy and I met and fell in love. This is my own personal fairy tale. I have a piece of wall art in our kitchen that I bought when the three of us finally moved out to Boise and moved into our first house. It reads "All because two people fell in love". My family is my heart and it all started with Jeremy and a list.

When I was in middle school my mother married a man she met at church who came from "a good church family". He ended up being an alcoholic heroine addict who hit her and screamed at all of us. On a funny note, because of his excessive drug use he had lost all of his teeth and had dentures. Whenever he would yell at me they would kind of pop out of his mouth. It was really funny to watch. He was such a ridiculous person. Because of him being such a tool, I decided to make a list when I was about 15 of the kind of attributes I wanted for a husband. I can't remember all of them, but some of them were: Able to pick me up (check), a believer in God (working on it), doesn't hit (check), doesn't yell at me or call me names (check), has a job (check). There were others, but these are some of the highlights. It was only living through what I knew I didn't want that I received the clarity to find what I do want. Keep this checklist in the back of your mind.

1990 was my freshman year of high school. I carried over my BFF from middle school and went over to her house to play. The easiest way to get to Andria's house was to cut through another neighborhood, which had a lot of other kids that were also in my freshman class. I met Jeremy my first week of high school. Now did I gaze into his eyes and think "Holy Cow, I'm going to marry that boy!" Of course not. It may be The South, but child brides were so passe even in the 90's. I did think he was nice and he showed some interest in me. I really loved male attention, so it didn't take a lot of chasing to reel me in. This was also helped along by my friend Hope who said "Have Jeremy walk you home". That was how we met.

We dated for a month and a half, I broke up with him because he was "too nice" (I hadn't made the list yet) and I felt a bit smothered by his affections. We stayed friends. No seriously, we really did. I would complain to him about boyfriends (I'm sure he loved that), would borrow his clothes, and when the group would hang out, it never felt weird. I always referred to him as "My Jeremy". We dated again for a whopping 24 hours. He paid for me to get into Six Flags, but by the end of the day I felt like he liked me too much and felt smothered again (where the hell is that list!). I broke up with him that night and started dating another kid the same evening via telephone. He was a sophomore and I thought I was the shizzle. In a couple weeks I broke up with him too. Jeremy was heart broken, felt totally used, and no longer wanted to have anything to do with me or my fickle friendship.

Skip ahead to our Junior year of high school. I had an English class with Jeremy and all of a sudden I saw him in a different light. As in the "OMG, what happened to him over the summer" kind of light. Jeremy was hot. Braces and all - hotness. He was still "My Jeremy", he just didn't know it yet.

By the time our Senior year of High School rolled around Jeremy was running with a different group, but he and I would still talk on the phone every once in a while. We would hang out and do things as friends, but it was just for fun. He asked me to The Nutcracker during the holidays, but it was totally a B-list kind of thing if his first date didn't work out. He knew it would hurt my feelings a bit. That was the point. By spring we had started hanging out a lot more and I finally got the courage to ask him to prom via a very courageous note I stuck in his jacket pocket at the end of our date. He purposely didn't get back with me so I had to call to get my answer. He was a very fabulous prom date and we have been an item ever since.

It was hard when I went away to college in Nashville. He asked me to stay in Georgia, but I told him this decision was made before my decision to date him. This was a big deal for me because usually I would bend my entire life to conform to whatever boyfriend I had at the moment. It was a hard year and a half, but we realized that we really loved each other and didn't want to be with anyone else. I decided after three semesters in Nashville that I would move back to Georgia where school and boarding (aka mom's house) were cheeper and finish my education there. Because I didn't have a car, Jeremy was my back and forth transport from Tennessee to Georgia and vice versa. When he came to pick me up he was acting so weird. My first thought was that he was about to break up with me since I was moving back. I kind of deserved it after how poorly I treated him in high school. Then he started into this speech about how me moving back was starting this new life and blah, blah, blah. That's when he got down on one knee in my dingy prison cell sized dorm room to ask me to marry him. I had been dropping not so subtle hints for months about wanting us to get married. Of course I said 'yes'. By this time I had gone over the checklist a hundred times in my mind. He was it. He is it. He's my perfect match.

The rest is the craziness of wedding plans, more school, more jobs, a rough-go with our marriage when we lived separately and almost called it quits, and a surprise that changed our marriage and who we are. Our little boogerface. I don't regret that rough-go at all because it made us both grow up and appreciate each other. When I was seven months pregnant with Natalia, Jeremy and I renewed our wedding vows. This time as adults who understood that "for better or for worse" was a catch all promise. I will gladly take that 10% of worse for my 90% of better. Every struggle has its place, every unanswered prayer has its purpose.

Now I get to live out my fairy tale every day. I have a husband who can pick me up physically and emotionally; he believes in God in his own way; he has never hit me, pushed me, or used intimidation; has a steady job and takes pride in supporting his family; and I can count on one hand how many times we have yelled at each other in the 17 years we have been together. I can honestly say that he is the best part of my day and will always and forever be My Jeremy.