Five years ago Today.

            During the five months that my husband and I were engaged, we had quite a few books suggested to us as ‘must reads.’ I cannot for the life of me now remember what any of them were, just that I read or skimmed at least three or four. One thing I remember almost all of them said, is that it is important for your own personal romance and for your children for you to tell the story of how you fell in love often. I came to think of it as one of those stories that you love to hear, but you know almost every word. In the first year of our marriage we told the story tons, and I remember I wrote it out in a journal I can’t now find. But at some point in the last couple of years, I have tired with the story. There might be a line or two I find embarrassing. In the first year I assumed everyone wanted to hear it, and now I assume when folks ask, “how’d you two meet?” they want the quick one sentence answer – “At a St. Patrick’s Day party.” I do not assume they want the long version which starts something like this (Note: if “At a St. Patrick’s Day party is enough for you – stop reading here).

            It was St Patrick’s Day 2007. A friend of mine from law school and I had become entrenched in a group bible study that had lots of Naval Academy graduates in it. We might have been a Bible study but we were also a social network and spent many evenings and almost all weekends hanging out. As single females in law school, we had realized that the moment we started studying law we shrank the pool of available men to an almost invisible puddle. After two years of it, we had determined engineers, doctors,  lawyers, and naval officers were about the only available men who had enough… we’ll call it moxy to deal with ‘strong’ women.

            I had gone out the night before to celebrate with another friend and had admittedly had too much of the best alcohol Ireland had to offer, so I volunteered to be the designated driver. We were excited because one of the Academy grads was throwing a party at his house, and it would be one of the few times he would invite the guys from his submarine to come over. In other words, new meat, I mean men.

            SPD (St. Patrick’s Day from here on out b/c it is way too long to keep typing – I know lazy millennial) is also in the middle of March and as any basketball fan knows, that means the only college basketball worth watching is on tv – March Madness. I was sitting on one of the sofas talking with a friend about a dinner party I was going to come co-host at his house to show the Yankees some good Southern food when some guy started wrestling with Brandon Webber (another friend) in the corner right next to us. I believed he was trying to get my attention. Later I moved to another spot to be able to focus on the game (Florida was playing and would later make the SEC proud and win the whole thing). The mysterious wrestling gentleman in a green shirt (imagine that) wound up sitting next to me. I don’t remember much of our conversation or how it started. But then he said he was converting to Catholicism. I was intrigued. I had never heard of much less talked to someone who grew up a protestant Christian converting in adulthood. He knew the word transubstantiation. I was impressed.

            Somewhere at this point in the conversation, Ray (a friend of the wrestler) came in from the ping pong table, which was set up as beer pong for the night, to retrieve the wrestler for his turn. He politely waved Ray off. Ray came back. He waved him off. Ray returned for his beer pong partner a third time, and this time I said “Beer pong with Ray or cute girl and basketball, I think he’s going to choose the girl.” I believe I may have done my hands as scales and implied that hot girl obviously out weighed beer pong. Ray replied that the hot girl could come watch beer pong, and I said “The hot girl is watching march madness, thus making her hotter.” Wrestler smiled and Ray left tail between his legs.

            Shortly thereafter, the now inebriated friends I was driving were ready to leave, and I jumped up to follow them out to my car. They had somehow obtained my keys. Wrestler stopped me and asked for my number. I, being genuinely interested, pointed to my friend Deb (who later married the guy who threw the party) and said she could give him my number. A little while later Deb texted and said “I gave that guy your real number, hope that’s what I was supposed to do.” Good ‘ole Deb.

            The next part of our romance was a whirlwind. There were all of 6 or 7 weeks before he left to meet a submarine in the Middle East and ride it back to the states, not returning until I had graduated and moved back to Alabama. There are a few more crowning moments that led to our engagement on August 4 and subsequent marriage in late December. I shall give them to you in brief and leave the engagement for another day.

            Lets see. Our first date, he made me stuffed shells for dinner. He did not know they were my favorite. We also watched Florida win yet another game in the march madness tournament. I spent the first few hours of the evening trying to figure out how to get him to ask to take me to a Ball I had the next day. He asked. He came. He got ignored. I was one of the folks who had planned it and was in charge, so I was constantly being called away for one thing or another. He was not mad, quite the opposite in fact, he was impressed that I was important. Quite the man, I thought. We didn’t get to dance so afterwards I followed him back to his condo and he sang to me while we danced together in front of the fireplace for the first time. We fell asleep talking in front of the fire.

            We spent at least some time together every day thereafter until he took me to the airport so I could fly across the country to visit an ex boyfriend. I know – not my brightest moment, but it obviously worked out. I spent the weekend dodging kisses and texting with him (the wrestler).

Before I got back to Virginia, he had left for the Middle East. As much as I liked this guy, I rationally believed we might keep in touch for a while and then things would fizzle and I would end up working at a law firm in Alabama and joining eHarmony to find a mate.

For the most part our only form of communication was email for the rest of our relationship leading up to our engagement. There were a few phone calls and one 36 hour visit. He never met my parents and asked for my hand in marriage essentially in an email from the submarine somewhere under the Atlantic (at least I assumed they were under the Atlantic).

In the end we were married nine months and eleven days after the “hot girl watching March Madness” won out over beer pong. He hasn’t made stuffed shells since.