Our Love Story

This is the 12th Valentine’s Day that Brian and I have celebrated together and in a nutshell, the past 12 years have been…

Amazing… and Crazy… and Beautiful.

The amazing part is that I found someone who knows our differences yet embraces them and still loves me wholeheartedly…

The crazy part is that after all these years, I still get butterflies when he’s near…

The beautiful thing is that our story is flawed and imperfect but the love we have for one another is very strong and very real…

I’ve never written our love story before; this is a first.  and will probably only skim who we are.

I met my husband (aka. hubby, Bri, babe, lover) when I was 15 years old. 

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While I wouldn’t necessarily say I was looking for him, my heart and soul most definitely said, “Oh there you are.”  The night I met my husband, I told my mom his name (the only thing I knew) and I told her that I would be with him one day.  I can’t describe how I knew that but I did.  I like to say he fell hard immediately but in reality, we both fell hard.  My father always taught me to let the boy chase the girl though and that’s exactly what I did.  He definitely chased me.  Shortly after we met, Brian went away to college for the Fall semester but made sure to contact me when he returned home for ‘break’.  We spent a lot of time together (almost daily) and if we weren’t together, we were on the phone.  He called every morning but one morning I didn’t receive a phone call.  I knew something was wrong.  Later that day, I found out that Brian was in an accident.  He was driving him and his best friend home after a night out and crashed the car that the two of them were in.  Brian made it out ok with minor injuries but a couple of weeks later, his best friend died.

We spent the next few years of our lives walking through a nightmare but our relationship grew stronger and stronger and through that experience, I learned how madly in love I was with him.  He was everything to me and the more time that went on, the harder it was to imagine my life without him.  He never stopped chasing.  I remember him leaving loves notes on the windshield of my car while I was in high-school.  I remember him always having something for me on the passengers seat of his car when we would go on a date.  Whether it be a flower, a note, a drawing, a poem; something.  I remember him sending e-mails shortly after we’d leave each other.  In fact, to this day, I still have a box with old printed e-mails, dried flowers, old photos, poems on napkin pieces, etc… I was head over heels for him.

When I was 19, Brian had to pay a price for what had happened years earlier.  My world crumbled but he stayed strong and positive through it all and never gave up on his goals and dreams or our future and I was committed and determined to get through it.  We did.  We learned how to love in a new and different way.  How to communicate through words.  How to be there for one another through trial.  And he never stopped showing his love for me.  When we were together again, it wasn’t long after that we knew we wanted to be together forever.

I believe that when you know you want to be with someone forever, you don’t need to play house, you don’t need to become successful, you don’t need to reach certain life goals or accomplish particular ‘nothings’… If you know that you are going to be together in ‘the end’ anyway, why wait? 

Bri slipped a ring on my finger and asked me to marry him and one year later, in the Fall of 2005, we walked down the isle and started our life together as a married couple.  Our first two years of marriage were wonderful.  We took trips, ate at every restaurant in town, shared long conversations, tried new things, explored the world around us, bought a house, finished college, started working full time and I learned something new about my man.  He is H-A-N-D-Y!!!  During our ‘free time’, I watched him renovate our 110 year old home.  I didn’t think it was possible for him to impress me even more but to this day, he still does.  Two years after marriage, we found out that we were pregnant and made the decision to sell our big old home and move closer to family.  We made a heck of a profit which landed us to where we are now.  These past 5 years have been quite a fun ride… becoming parents and watching my love become a father (twice).  It amazes me that he still amazes me, still gives me butterflies, takes me breath away, impresses me beyond words; I’m blessed.  That’s for sure.

While this story (our love story) just skims the top layer of who we are, it reminds me that we’ve been through quite a lot and there’s still a lot more to come!  More babies, more adventures, more experiences, more ups and I’m sure more downs too.  But the greatest thing of all is that I get to do it all with him.

Happy 12th Valentine’s Day, my one and only love.  I love that you’re mine to ride through life with.

The ups & the downs wouldn’t be the same without you by my side.

xo

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