Time passed, and I barely noticed it there anymore. After all, it hangs above the door to the laundry room, a place I try regularly to avoid. But one day I glanced up from my end of our long wooden dinner table. The words glared back at me. It was during a tough time in my marriage, and upon reading the sign in that moment I felt a sense of fakeness. I’d suddenly wished I had never hung it up. It read like a lie: “This couple, this family, this home… all of it, because two people first fell madly in love.” What a fraud I was. That’s not how our story read at all.
We aren’t your typical romance story. He didn’t pursue and woo me at first sight. No long courtship ensued. There was no head over heels feeling, or moment of knowing that he was “The One”. I’d had the pursuing and the wooing. I’d become engaged to it, and planned a wedding with it. Then, I left it. And that’s when I met my husband.
Random chance put us side by side at a work meeting. All of the details leading up to the morning of our meeting seemed the Universe’s attempt at keeping us apart. I was sent to a location a long drive South, only to find out upon arrival that the training class had been moved last minute, to a location far North. Somehow, this information never made its way to me- not through office email or my manager. I waited around a bit, for word from my superiors as to whether I should attend this already in session training incredibly late, or head on back to the office and catch the next training happening a week later. The decision was made to have me attend, beyond tardy. Back into my silver coupe I hopped, tunes playing, for a two hour drive back the direction from which I’d just come. It was a bright and beautiful September day…. I took my time on that long stretch of Route 1 North, and into the city of Wilmington.
The only seat left for me was directly next to him. His dimples were sweet and the sparkle in his bright blue eyes was reminiscent of the brilliant blue fall sky I’d appreciated on my drive up that morning. I took notice almost immediately. His endearing chuckle and broad chest also grabbed my attention. So too, did his gaughty yellow gold watch. We’re both pretty outgoing, and having to spend hours in a training class over the course of several days together lead to conversation and laughter. “Sense of humor, check.” But, he smoked, was a Dallas Cowboys football fan, and had an apparent tacky taste in accessories. “Triple No-Check.” Throw in the fact that I was sort of seeing a rebound guy after my engagement ended with the good ole high school sweetheart, and wasn’t even looking… Mere attraction wasn’t enough for us to make any moves on one another and I doubted I’d even see him again. I still think back on this day sometimes and wonder how we ever ended up together. How could I have possibly known that I’d just met my husband and future father of my children?....
More time passed. We had another training course together, ironically at the location I’d initially gone to the last time. I was surprised at myself that I was excited to see him there when I walked into the room. And I was sorry that he was already seated with others next to him. There came a point in that class where we were instructed to pair up and “role play” a situation. A tall, lanky and tremendously dorky man in his late thirties eagerly jumped up and asked if I’d be his partner. “Damn.” This guy was pretty high up in the banking world, and worked for an office a good distance away from mine. He somehow finagled his way into insisting I take his business card in case I ever had any ‘questions’ that he could be helpful in answering for me and I gave him mine. (I never called. He, on the other hand, did. And left a cringe worthy voice mail after several failed attempts to reach me, as well as a few creepy emails. I eventually had to tell him, very nicely, to lose my card.)
After this class, we corresponded via company email a bit here and there. Until before I knew it, it was every day. At the end of our shifts, we’d find ourselves typing things like “talk to ya tomorrow.” He was in another building, in another city, so there was no office “walk by’s” or anything like that optional. I’d gone on a few dates here and there with a guy who worked in pharmaceuticals, and a couple first and last dates with two others. Nothing at all serious and I still thought of him often. Finally, one day I either invited him along to a local restaurant bar where I had plans with a girlfriend of mine, or he invited himself. Either way, I can still recall with striking detail the moment he came strutting through the door. Black bomber jacket. “Is this 1988?” Fashion fail and all, he looked cute as could be! Those dimples, and those eyes immediately drew my gaze away from that leather disaster, and we spent the night talking, laughing and drinking Sicilian Kisses shots with my girlfriend and a group of her coworkers at a bustling college town bar. My next email the following Monday, would be more than just friendly, as he complimented me on my appearance the other night. I may not have been wearing a coat stolen from Tom Cruise in ‘Top Gun’ (sans the patches), but I certainly wasn’t looking my best. I still remember having my hair in a bun, and I recall exactly what I’d been wearing: a blue and yellow sweater, blue jeans, and white sneakers. Naïve me had no clue that this “restaurant” turned into a happening bar once the clock struck 9:00, and after I’d finished dinner with my friend and we made our way to the bar area, all around me I was surrounded by stiletto heels, miniskirts and halters tops. (Regardless of the fact that it was a freezing cold January night.) In any event, a few more emails exchanged, and I asked him outright if he was flirting with me. His cheeky response gave me my answer.
We hung out as friends, but there was no denying our attraction to one another. One night while dropping me off at my parent’s home, he gave me the quickest kiss on the lips. It startled me, as we’d always remained strictly platonic, and my reaction seemed to offend him. It was then that I realized we were fooling no one by pretending nothing was there, and I pulled him back in for a do-over. From there we saw each other just about every single day. I club hopped with this seasoned “bad boy”, more than I’d ever gone clubbing before. In fact, he was the only reason I went. When our dates didn’t consist of dancing and drinking, we watched movies, talked about our families, and I introduced him to mine even though I was hesitant to meet his. Things progressed quickly, and I was the happiest I’d been in quite some time…. Long story short, we found out I was pregnant on April 27th, 2006. All of that “attraction” and bar hopping together had led us straight down the fast track to parenthood.
That night we decided that as crazy as it seemed, we would be a family. Looking back, we were strangers at best. But we came from similar family backgrounds: our heritage, our values, our beliefs and our ideas on what we wanted for our family and for this baby were all aligned. In a whirlwind of events we bought a house, married, and welcomed two baby boys within one year’s time. Our first son was born in December, and his younger brother came in November of 2007.
Writing this today, I realize that the sign that hangs in my kitchen could not be any truer of me and my family. Against all odds, here we are. We’d never have made it this far without love. A strong, authentic, overwhelming, binding kind of love.
Ours is a love not of tradition, or romance- but of dedication, and faith. We took a leap of faith and placed all bets on one another because of our love for our unborn child and the goodness we saw in each other. We continue to dedicate ourselves to one another and our children, because of a kind of love neither of us had ever known until we became “us”. On our journey together, we struggled emotionally, and financially, but in the face of adversity we fought. We fought for love. We lost who we were and found who we were meant to be, because of love. We continue to fight for this love we’ve created. Because it’s a love worth fighting for.
So, no, our love is not the ideal kind that you envision for yourself or for your children, or one that the fairy tales depict. We may have met as colleagues, married as virtual strangers, and fallen in love with one another along the way. But it just so happens, that despite the way our love has come about, it’s the most brilliant kind of love I have ever experienced. And I know with a strange certainty that we cherish each other in ways that we couldn’t possibly any other. This love we’ve got has grown and has strengthened in ways I have not seen in any other relationship. And it continues to grow. Our marriage, our family, this house we’ve made into a home: Indeed, it is all because two people fell in love…..
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