How We Met and How We Got Here

I will have known Chasity for 2 years by the time we're on our honeymoon, and as of last Sunday we have officially been together for 1 3/4 years.

I met her when she was visiting my now sister-in-law just before my sister-in-law and brother got married.  Chase was the maid of honor at their wedding, and we immediately shared a mutual attraction.  After only getting to spend a very limited amount of time together for a few days, Chase had to travel back to Memphis.  I really don't even know all of why it got to me so much, but I cried when she left.  It felt like, "Here I just met an incredibly awesome person that I really want to get to know better, and now she's going 6 hours away and I'll probably never really get to know her."  But thankfully God had other plans and that's not what happened. Instead, we started texting each other, then chatting online a ridiculous amount, and before long talking on the phone a ridiculous amount every single day.  I'm on my computer most of the time with work and everything, and she stayed online on the phone, so I'd chat with her off and on while I was working and she was doing school, then every night we'd talk on the phone about just about everything imaginable.

And that brings me to one of the things I love most about Chase and our relationship -- our communication.  From the very beginning, we've talked with each other and shared with each other about topics ranging all over the place.  We remain in near constant communication and stay very updated on each others thoughts and feelings about things.  We're free to express our thoughts, feelings, and preferences about just about everything, including things we disagree on.  (Sometime I'll post about the topic of talking about things we disagree on, because lots can be said about it and I'm still learning lots about it.)

Going back to the story of us getting to know each other.  At one point, she came back to East Tennessee for the weekend, but that same weekend I was going up to Chicago with a friend. So I only got to see her about 15 minutes between the time she got here and I had to leave.  And in those 15 minutes I guess you could say I fell head over heels in love with her.  We didn't really even do anything. She just came, we saw some animal in the yard and went over closer to try and see what it was and it ran away. Then we went inside and I had to pack my things to leave.  She stayed in my apartment while gone though since it's very near where my sister-in-law lived who she was visiting.  While there, she cleaned out all my cabinets and cleaned everything and left me a note with her perfume on it thanking me for letting her stay there.

Then it was back to chatting and talking on the phone, but with a new realization on my part that I wanted to be more than "just" friends with this girl.

Finally, the band Casting Crowns was going to play somewhere in Memphis and she bought us tickets for the show on October 15th, 2009.  Every time we talked for weeks (months? I don't remember. It seemed like ages.) we were longing for October 15th when we'd get to meet each other and for the first time spend a decent amount of time together.

At last the date came and I went and stayed with my grandparents in West Tennessee then went to see her.  We ate out with her mom and then she showed me around her campus and we hung out with her roommate, then went to the concert.  The concert was awesome and I told her for the first time that I love her.  I'd been dying to say it for a long time, but wanted it to be in person.  The next day, we traveled back to East Tennessee together.  The long drive was great, and I think we held hands pretty much the entire way.

Chase and I at the Casting Crowns Conert

After that began a long period of time where we'd take turns her coming here and me going there every other weekend or so.  And that's what we did until last month when we got her a 2 bedroom apartment where she is now living and where I'll be moving into as soon as we're married.

There's SO much more I could say about all of that and things to tell about.  Like her going to France for her spring break and the hard time we had after that.  Or when I went to Zambia for 3 weeks and she totally redecorated, refurnished, and reorganized my apartment and made it a real home instead of a bachelor pad while I was away.  But to tell about everything would take me weeks, and this post would be way too long. So in order to post more often and hopefully keep things interesting, I'll end here and tell about more in future posts.  Like our engagement.