My Best Friend

It was exactly 15 years ago that I met my best friend.

Today Mark and I celebrate the anniversary of our very first date, which happened to be a blind date.

Would you like to hear about it?  Of course you would....:)

I was living with my grandparents at the time.  I had graduated high school the summer before and was just living here working and trying to decide which direction I wanted to go in life.  I didn't have many friends here beyond some people at work, so my social life was pretty pathetic.  I had dated a bit, but did not have much success.  Met some very interesting guys and had some pretty weird experiences, but that's a story for another day...

My great aunt lives next door to my grandparents.  She happens to go to Mark's mom to have her hair done every week.  His mom is a beautician and has a beauty shop in her basement.  When Mark came home from his mission in June, the conspiracy started.  My aunt told his mom that I was a cute girl and that Mark should call me.  So Mark's mom tried to get him to call me, but he was busy catching up on all the movies and such that he had missed while on his mission. ;)

It's a good thing that I decided to take some initiative...actually it was more an act of desperation than anything.  I had a work party to attend one weekend and I needed a date.  So I thought it would be a good opportunity to call this guy that my aunt had been bugging me about for weeks.

I called him to ask him to go to the party with me, but he ended up asking me to go to a movie with him that night.  I said yes and had about 15 minutes to get ready.

Let's just say that I did not feel particularly cute when he arrived to pick me up.  I had recently had a pretty bad haircut and color (seems to be a running theme in my life) and was planning on having my Aunt Kathy fix it that night.  She ended up having to cancel our appointment right before I talked to Mark.  I had been wearing a hat all day and did not have time to wash my hair. I tried to fix the "hat hair" and ended up pulling it into a pretty scary bun.  I must have not done laundry or something too because I chose to wear a t-shirt and my favorite pair of overalls. Can you say slob city?  I really don't know what I was thinking.  

He picked me up and we went to see Men In Black with a couple of his friends.  After the movie we went back to his house to play games.  I met his mom for the first time and fell in love with her instantly.  I am so glad that I actually wrote in my journal about this date.  It was fun to go back and read how I felt and what went through my mind.  I thought he was cute, funny, smart and I remember just feeling so comfortable with him.  After his friends left, we just sat at his kitchen table and talked for a couple of hours.  I had not had a date like that in a long time.  

He must have really been digging the slob look or liked what I had to say because it only took him 2 days to call me and ask me out again.  ;)  

 And here we are about 4 weeks later...newly engaged and completely in love.

If someone would have told me that I was going to go on a blind date and get engaged to that blind date within 1 month, I would have told them they were crazy.  That kind of stuff only happens in movies.

 We were together almost every day for that 4 weeks, but it really only took me a couple weeks to know that this relationship was different.  I know it sounds cliche, but I felt like we had known each other forever.  I just wanted to be with him every second that I could.  He made me laugh and made me feel pretty at a time in my life that I didn't feel really great about myself. 

Now here we are, 15 crazy years later.  He is still and always will be my best friend.  I love him more today than ever.  My favorite sound is when the garage door opens at dinner time and I know he's going to be walking in that door any second.  He has been my rock this past year and I am so blessed to have such a wonderful man in my life.  I have talked to other women who have had cancer whose husband or boyfriend has left them because they weren't pretty enough any more or couldn't handle all of the changes that cancer brings.  My heart breaks for them, but rejoices at the same time because I have a husband who loves me for who I am on the inside.  He knows that it's not the hair or how I look that makes me who I am and he makes me feel beautiful.

Love you honey....here's to another fabulous 15 years and more!