How we Met

So the very HOT AndreAnna had a question on her blog tonight and because I've been working for 17 hours and because I have at least another hour in front of me I decided to take a break and answer her question. How did the FH and I meet.

The first time I saw the FH was orientation weekend at Nazareth College and he was a transfer student and I was an incoming freshmen...I remember seeing him across the gym and thinking he had such a cute baby face. We were in a few classes together that first semester and he was a basketball player and I was on the Dance Team (the Cheerleaders at Naz were real whores so the Dance Team was a good move). I thought he ran funny on the basketball court - and I just loved mocking the announcer as he would say "Namber firtytwo for da Nazareth College Gooowwwwden Fryers INSSSSERRRRRTTTT FH'SSSNAME". I still do it to make him smile because it was just hilarious. We weren't really friends then but we knew who the other person was.

So it was the end of the second semester of my freshman year and I had a HUGE crush on the FH's roommate - HUGE. I L-O-V-E-D this guy...entirely in my mind because in reality I had no idea who he was. Anyway, we were all in Marketing 101 and for some reason I was given the final a week early and the teacher was kind of a dope because he told me to go take it in the library and then slip it under his door in the MORNING. I mean, come on. I'm a goodie goodie but this is just ASKING for trouble. So in hopes of making friends with the love of my life (the FH's roommate) I made a copy of the test for "the guys"....I didn't give them the right answers mind you - just the test. I still can't believe I did that because it is SO not like me. So I drop by their dorm room with the test and as I'm sitting on the sofa with the entire Basketball and Lacrosse teams the FH walks in and says "Yo, did you get the test from that stupid girl." He then see's me sitting there and says "oh." Yup. That's what he said. Needless to say I wasn't all about being this guys friend after that first real interaction.

Fast forward two years and we were both in a Holocaust Remembrance class with my very favorite nun of all time: Dr. Sister Susan. It was time for people to pair up for the big project that would make up about 1/2 of our grade...and she was assigning partners based on their "stregnths". The FH and I were paired off - I think it was because he is Jewish and was constantly challenging the whole Catholic thing and Sister Susan felt like I could run him into doing a decent job. She was right. We met with a survivor and the FH really impressed me - he was very thoughtful and knowledgeable and really reached out to this women...so I overlooked the stupid girl comment. After we met with this women the FH asked me if I'd like to grab lunch and I said "sure, want to go to Lordes dining hall?" to which he scoffed "I think we can do a little better then that."

The FH took me to this AMAZING greek hole in the wall and taught me how to eat a Gyro that day...we had easy conversation and we decided that we could be friends. From there we started talking all the time and he would call me and ask for help on homework and I would come over to his apartment off campus and bring him milkshakes from Friendly's or Peligrino. We were always just friends and then one night he walked me out to my car and we kissed - he of course wanted to more then kiss...but I wasn't that kind of girl. You want to kiss me then you've got to date me and the FH didn't want to date. So that was that. Just friends.

That next year was tough - the FH graduated and I was a senior in college - that summer my mom had breast cancer and I had a lot going on myself including a scare with a tumor and a bad case of mono...the FH was there every single day on the phone. Even when he was in Europe playing basketball he called me EVERY single day to see how I was. He was my very best friend. We talked for HOURS and hours and hours. But still, just friends. Something happened and around graduation time we didn't talk for about 6 weeks...I don't even remember what it was. Hmmm. I'll have to ask him when he's awake.

One bizarre day I sent him a very long e-mail and as I clicked send the phone rang and it was him. Obviously he hadn't gotten my e-mail but we were on the same page. He said that he loved me, that he wanted to be with me, that he didn't want to ruin my senior year of college being in a long distance relationship, that he wanted me to have the fun that I had without the baggage of a boyfriend hundreds and thousands of miles away. I told him it was all too much, I hung up the phone and we didn't speak again for months. I just couldn't process it all - how could he love me? How could he not tell me all this time? Why would he let me get hurt by other guys and listen about it?

We started talking again when I started traveling a lot for my job as an outsourcing / consolidation project manager. We were back to just friends because I couldn't deal with the bigger. Then one day I was standing outside of the hotel in Pasadena, CA getting ready to go to the office and he called my cellphone and told me that he needed to have surgery on his ankle. And it was in that single moment when I was completely and totally concerned about this other person that I realized that I loved him too - that I simply could not spend another minute away from him and that I would do anything so that he wouldn't be in pain- ever again.

I went to visit him after his surgery and that weekend of really getting to know his family and being there for him the way a partner is there for someone that they love I decided that I had to move here - I had to be with him. The next three months kind of flew by and things just worked out and that summer I moved to Westchester and we've been basically married ever since.

I am such an emotional mess I'm tear streaked just thinking about all that good stuff....about how that felt back then. I love him so very much. I may be the luckiest girl in the world to get to share my life with him...and we're both so lucky because we're going to have this little girl together.