Seven Years

“I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look or the words, 

which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. 

I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.” 

Kyle and I met in person seven years ago today. We'd met on MySpace about a month before and exchanged frequent emails, had IM and phone conversations. He'd tried to get me to go out with him several times and I'd cancelled or stood him up out of nerves every time. I don't even know why- I'd certainly met much shadier characters with no qualms before. I'd love to say it was butterflies because I had a crush on him, but that wouldn't be true. I wasn't particularly interested in him. He was intelligent, polite, attractive and drug-free, but those weren't things that really resonated with me at that point.

When he asked me to be his girlfriend that evening after we watched Shrek 2 (so romantic a first date) I made a hasty, mercenary decision. I was trying to get clean, and he was the only guy I was talking to/seeing that would lead me in that direction. Logically, he was the best choice. At some point I can't define, love caught up to the logic that led to my accepting his request, but I am so grateful I followed my head rather than my heart, that one time.

I told him I loved him for the first time while on a morphine drip after a botched gallbladder removal. I don't think it counts because I wasn't lucid, but he claims otherwise. He didn't say it back though, just in case it really was just the pain meds talking. Kyle told me he loved me for the first time on February 13, just to make sure I knew he didn't do it out of Valentine's Day pressure. He'd never told a girl he loved her before.

When we were sealed in the Columbia, SC temple in 2010, I couldn't stop thinking about how close I came to passing him up. How many times I cancelled on him. I think I knew, before we met, that he would help me change my life if I let him in. And I wasn't sure I was ready to make the changes. I'm so incredibly grateful that I made that snap decision not to stand him up that last time. So grateful that I let my logic lead me even though my heart wasn't entirely on board.

If there's one thing I learned about marriage from my first, failed attempt, it was that love alone is not enough to make it work. Kyle has all the qualities that must accompany love into our eternal marriage. It took us both a lot of growing to get where we are now, and we have so much more growing to do, and we get to do it together. I couldn't have gotten luckier in an arbitrary choice.