The Story of Us

Title is a little cliche, but oh how I am excited to write about this one. I am so glad that Rachelle had this idea, because this is something that I have been really wanting to write about. The story of how Shane and I met is a good, one at least I think. It goes like this. Please bare with me, because I think that all love stories should be told as a fairytale.

Once upon a time many years ago (ok six to be exact) there lived a beautiful princess who lived in a cold dark smelly cave. Now I know what you are thinking 'Princesses don't live in dark, smelly, caves' but this one did. To be totally honest I admit at one point it had been an actual apartment, but years of being ignored by the greedy landlord had turned it into little more than a cave, where the poorest of poor college students were forced to live (even when they are princesses). I mean it, this apartment really was bad, you can ask Shane if you don't belive me. The princess wasn't the only person who lived in the cave, in the cave there also lived one of her best friends Jeri who had been on many adventure with the princess(someday I will have to chronicle the adventures of Jeri and Nicole, I tell those are some really good stories), another roomate who was engaged and therefore spent as little time as possible in the cave (since she had somewhere better to hang out) and a ferocious dragon (read roomate with serious passive aggressive, and overall grouchiness issues). The princess was generally really happy in the cave, if she was able to avoid the dragon that is. Now one day a friend came to visit me (yep you guessed it the princess is me) and told me all about some boy that she liked, well actually she swore that she didn't like him, just wanted to get to know him, but we all knew she liked him. So the next day at church I (I mean the princess) checked him out, yeah he seemed like a nice guy, so I gave her the go ahead on this boy. Well my friend asked him out and to make it more fun we threw together a group date. Well on the night of the date we met at my apartment and made dinner. I have to admit that if memory serves it wasn't even a very good dinner, and then after dinner we couldn't even think of anything to do except watch a movie. Someone had this great idea to build a fort to watch the movie in so Jeri and I dragged our mattresses out of our room and put them on the floor and then tried to use our sheets to build the walls of the fort, this didn't work very well until I had the great idea of stapling the sheets to the ceiling. So we built a fabulous fort and all watched a movie. After the movie ended we all went home, and I thought at the time that was the end of the story. What I didn't know was that as I was pulling down the fort and putting my bed back together (so as to avoid the wrath of the dragon), my friend on the date with Shane was at the doorstep to her apartment trying to put the moves on Shane*. Shane however wasn't reciprocating he was thinking about the fun girl that had stapled her sheets to the ceiling. A few weekends later Shane showed up at my doorsteps saying something lame like, "you and your roomates, should hang out with me and my roomates tonight." I was thoroughly confused wondering to myself "is he tyring to ask me out?" Well as luck would have it all of my roomates were out of town that weekend and I told Shane so thinking that he wouldn't want to hang out with just me. Truth be told I thought that he was after the Dragon (she was mean, but had some strange power over men, and attracted them constantly). Shane invited me to dinner and said he would be back in awhile to pick me up. What I didn't know was that Shane had to go home and tell his roomates that they couldn't come, because he wanted to be alone with this girl. So we went to dinner and then started driving home, we were both really digging each other and didn't want to go home so I mentioned oh so casually that I had never seen the wind caves. Shane quickly volunteered to show them to me, and so we went on a hike. On the hike I remembered that I talked, and talked, and talked, and I also remember that Shane didn't seem to mind. He really seemed interested in listening to me and that made me feel so good. I also noticed that he seemed really respectful of me. So Shane and I started dating, sort of slowly at first, in fact the first time that Shane kissed me I told him that I wasn't ready for that, and he said ok. I remember the next night he didn't come over, and I thought that for sure I had ruined it and that he had moved on to other girls, he was in fact at the time in one of the upstairs apartments snuggling with some other girl. Also in that upstairs apartment was Jeri's current love interest so she talked me into going up there with her. When we walked in sure enough there was Shane lounging on the couch with Julie. I felt so stupid and wanted to kick myself, because I really did like Shane, I just also had alot of other issues adding strain to my abilities to handle a relationship. I really liked Shane alot, I just felt a lot of pressure to do exactly the right thing, and so I was trying to proceed cautiously. So as soon as I saw Shane on the couch with Julie I thought it was over, but as soon as Shane saw me walk in the room he sat up and moved away from her so quickly that you would have thought that poor Julie had just burst into flames. Now Julie of course had not burst into flames, but she had noticed my arrival and Shane's sudden departure from her side, and she did quickly flee the room. Thinking back I can't really blame her for feeling hurt, but at the time she was the other woman and I hated her with a fury that lies within all women and only comes out when another female get in the way of her potential mate (come on you all know what I am talking about). So Julie went upstairs to her room and Shane (dramatic pause) followed her. Well then I knew that it was really over and I felt extra stupid, knowing that I was sitting downstairs, while the man I was in love with was upstairs probably smooching it up with Julie**. Well I was just about to leave when Shane came back and sat down next to me. He started chatting about some graduation celebration thing that he planned to go to, and then looked at me and said, "You're going with me right?" I was thoroughly confused, but of course said yes. Shane and I soon after left the party and went on a walk, things were just like they had been before, we talked and talked. I told Shane that when I didn't want to kiss him the night before I thought that I had ruined everything. Shane assured me that I had not and we left it at that. There were several days that followed where Shane and I were "friends." I thought that he was so great. We hung out almost everyday and loved to talk to each other. We went on about a million hikes and walks. Shane even went to the art museum with me. We loved being together, and one night we did kiss again and then I was ready, and it was wonderful, and after that we kissed all the time and loved it. Dating Shane was so much fun we loved spending time together. Shane made me feel so important and special when I was with him.

Shane and I dated for four months and were engaged for two...and have been married for five and half years. I am so glad that Shane found me. He is such a special guy, and I can truly say that we lived "Happily Ever After."

*I must admit that later as our courtship really got going that I did feel the need to ask my friend if she was ok with it all. Now of course she said that it was, I mean what was she supposed to say really...In my selfish girly heart though I distincly remember thinking if she says its not ok, I sure am going to miss being friends with her.

**What I only learned much later on was that Shane realized that he had hurt Julie's feelings and although he knew that he would leaving the party with me, he went first to Julie's room to apologize for snuggling with her in the first place when he really liked another girl, and then secondly for treating her like she was on fire when that other girl walked in the room.