Do you know the saying "Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite."? Someone gifted us this saying in a frame as a wedding present. It hangs in our bedroom, often passed by but rarely thought of.
We had a scare last Wednesday night. It was unexpected and scary, and while we got through it, it has left me thinking and feeling so many things. I can't remember right now if I have shared our story before. Memory tells me that I have only mentioned it here and there. Today seemed like the perfect day to share it though. (I would suggest a cup of coffee or apple cider for this one.)
I was 23 years old. The new year had just started. I was tired of waiting. Tired of waiting for Mr. Right. Tired of dealing with the Mr. Wrongs. Tired of the stories, of the nerves, of feeling like it was all wasted time. I was tired of crying for someone that did not know me, and tired of praying the same prayer again and again. My life finally felt like it was out of a stand still at work, but where to go from there I still did not know. I wanted so much more, and unfortunately I had no idea how to get there.
I had spent the last year on a couple of dating websites. I was ready to delete my online accounts and save my time and money. I decided to give it 3 more months (Match.com's last effort to keep me.) Someone had written me the summer before, but I hadn't responded because I was talking to someone else. I hadn't forgotten him though. He had had a sweet face, and again, for whatever reason, I hadn't forgotten. I wrote him a quick hello, hit send, and thought that that would be the end of it. I was surprised to see him respond. It was possibly the worst introduction topic we first spoke of. He loved the Patriots, I hated Tom Brady. I really thought he would never write back once I told him that (no guy ever wrote back when I didn't like what they did). Surprisingly, he not only wrote back, but asked me to explain. We never stopped talking. We talked every day. We would mostly write at night. He would write after work. I would write at 12 or 1 at night. Sometimes he stayed up even later than me and I would have an email to read first thing in the morning. Our conversations were long (aka. lots of typing). While I was on vacation with my family a few weeks later, he wrote and asked if I would like to go to dinner. We met a week later, the day after I came home.
I remember walking inside the restaurant. I was so nervous; trying to prepare myself for what might be just another first/last date. I had fixed my outfit a hundred times at work that day- tightened my belt, re-flounced my shirt, fixed my pantyhose. I remember waiting, and then seeing him walk through the door. When I saw him, my nerves vanished. It felt right to stand beside him, to sit with him, to talk in person. We talked so much that neither of us ate our dinner. The waitress felt so bad that I later found out that she didn't even charge us for the full meal. Before we left the restaurant, we had already made plans to meet again that Saturday. We went for coffee, and because the coffee shop was closing, we sat outside in the cold on their concrete benches until we couldn't take it anymore. We sat in his truck, sipping our coffee as if it were the most normal thing in the world. When he dropped me off at my truck, he leaned in and kissed me. He actually kissed me. (Probably not the craziest thing to most, but to me it was a sign that I thought about, and thought about, and thought about for awhile. After things hadn't worked out with my teenage crush, I prayed to God for years that He allow no one else to have my heart except for my husband. To be sure I didn't miss the man He had for me, I even went so far as to ask Him to make sure that my husband be the next man to kiss me. Yeah, I asked for all but a giant arrow sign saying "THIS IS HIM, PAIGE!". )
We continued to write every day. We saw each other every weekend and multiple times throughout the week. It was within just a few months that our families began asking just when exactly we would be getting married. I had realized two months in that this was the man I would marry. We were on a hunt for pixy-stix for my mother. She had jokingly suggested I look for some while I was out. We had nothing else to do and ended up making an all day date of it. At one point my mother texted and said that if we didn't find them, there would be no hard feelings as we would just be forfeiting our first child to her. (Yep, only 2 months in, y'all.) Rather than running, Justin laughed and became more determined. It was as he was opening his truck door for me and helping me up that I realized how easily I could do this forever. I told him I loved him by writing it on the inside of the cardboard wrapper of a Starbucks cup. (We had a habit of hiding messages in gifts to one another.) He told me he loved me a few days later in person when he gave me the bouquet of a dozen paper roses that he had handmade for the last six weeks.
We were married on a cool fall day at my parents home that October. My family helped us pull together all of my ideas to make it beautiful. The whole day was filled with such an amazing amount of love. The only nerves between us both were concerning standing up in front of everyone else. It was a small wedding, only our closest family and friends. I still remember holding Justin's hand, squeezing it every so often just to remind him not to focus on those behind us. Looking back at pictures it is laughable to see how quickly we ran back up the aisle into my parents' house. (Like I said, we were nervous.) When we left later that afternoon, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Holding his hand in the car, helping him eat Chickfila while he drove, listening to music as we rode in mostly silence...it was wonderful.
Our marriage has been far from easy. Our apartment, our house, our holidays have mostly come along without a hitch. Our relationship...not so much. We and our families have had to find our footing with the new additions to our family. We have had to help each other through bad days at work, bad bosses, a difficult family member, and some really sucky illnesses. (Yep, totally using the word sucky here.) We have argued. We have disagreed. There has even been a night or two where one of us considered sleeping in another room. It hasn't all been paper roses and Starbucks.
I can't say that I look at Justin as the same man that met me that night in the restaurant or that held my hand on our wedding day. I know so much more of him now. I love him so much more than I did the day I married him. I consider that a great start. I actually imagine every day to be just that- a great start to a continuing story. We have fought and forgiven one another. We have hurt feelings and sought forgiveness. We have babied each other through sick days, and held hands through doctor visits. (We have also avoided kissing and sharing too much of the same air during these times as well...out of love for one another though.) We have seen each other's tears and felt each others pain again and again. He is so much more than the man I married in my parents yard that fall afternoon. He is my husband. He is the man that hates to mow our yard- seriously he cheers when half of the yard dies each winter, and mopes each spring when it grows back. Even so, it is our yard and we both like when it looks nice. He is the man who shared more than half our bed with a giant maternity pillow for nearly 7 months last year all so I could sleep better. He is the man who still teases me for my nervous jokes with the nurses when I've had blood work done, and who held my hand through 2 iv attempts smiling with me to remind me it would be over soon. He is the man who has contacted my parents with bad news on a day when I could not share it with them myself. He is the man who knows coffee is perhaps the go-to bandaid for my problems, and who has never laughed at me when I break down in tears. He is the man who, no matter how hot I insist I am under the covers, I will inevitably find touching me or holding me throughout the night because he just can't sleep without me anymore. He is the man that, even when he was sick in the hospital last week, asked his nurse to bring me an extra pillow at 4 in the morning when she came to check on him. I didn't even know this until he gently woke me up to put the pillow under my head. This is the man who has loved our son more deeply than he thought possible, and who has changed an insurmountable amount of diapers since August last year. He is the one who is so amazed by this little person we made, so in love with him, and so in love with being loved, that he is happy to give up his quiet morning hours on the weekend to spend playtime with our sweet boy as soon as he calls for his daddy. He has made me feel beautiful without makeup, without my hair brushed, without my original figure, and even with sticky milk dried to my skin and lack of sleep all because he looks at me with love every time. To steal from one of the best movies ever- he is the first person I want to see in the morning, and the last person I want to talk to at night. My dream for my life could never have matched how wonderful it has been these last few years.
We had a scare last week as I said. It turns out that Justin has afib- for reasons the doctors cannot explain. Because of his age and general health, the doctors believe one procedure should be able to correct it, and then we can continue on our way. It is another piece to our story, I know. Still, it is one I would much rather skip. I would be lying to say I am ready for this bit of adventure and completely unafraid. Watching him worry and wait everyday for this invisible thing to make itself known again before he sees the doctor next is frustrating. I am afraid of how completely in love I have become with this man. I love my husband more than I thought imaginable, and I respect him even more than I realized. Sitting in the emergency room last week, and then later in the hospital room, I had time to think. I had time to remember all the countless things that I had filed in my memory. I had time to recognize all the sweet pieces that have become part of my life since Justin and I met. I had time to enjoy and breathe in the pleasure of this life God has allowed us to build together in such a short amount of time. No matter how hard or scary some of the pages to the story become, the overall story is always beautiful. It really is amazing what love can do.
