Nine Years

Nine years ago today my husband and I had our first date. Sometimes it seems like the time has flown by and other times it seems like it's been longer. Oddly enough, neither of us really thought we would be more than friends at first. The story of how we ended up together is kind of interesting so I thought I'd share.

Nine years ago I had surgery to replace the ACL in my knee. It takes a bit to recover from and I was going out of my mind with boredom from just sitting around. I couldn't really do much physically as I was still on crutches and confined to my rear end a lot. So, I logged on to the internet. Out of boredom I found an international chat room because I like talking to people from different places.  Well, I commented on someone's screen name and we started talking. He told me he was in Egypt right then but lived in the states.We talked for a while and hit it off so we exchanged emails. After that we talked online every day.

About a month later when he came back to the states we started talking about meeting face to face. I gotta admit it made me a little nervous because you just never know. But we agreed to meet in a public place where I knew everyone. He lived 200 miles away but he drove it just to meet me.  I got there first and I will never forget that moment when he walked in the door. He had on a dark blue shirt and we both smiled. I'm a shy person so it was a bit awkward at first but once we started talking, we didn't stop.

I discovered that it wasn't really him I had started talking to at first. His brothers had been using his screen name while he was asleep. But, when they found out where I lived, they woke him up to talk to me. He didn't want to get up at first, they had to convince him.  Later on, they didn't believe him when he told them he had actually met me.

In the beginning we didn't expect it to go anywhere. We liked each other but long distance relationships are HARD. We spent a lot of time on the phone but that's not the same as being face to face with someone. But it did make us appreciate the time we did get to spend together. Added to that was the fact that we're two different races and some people reacted badly to that. There are some people I don't speak to anymore.

A little over a year after we first met, we became engaged. A few months after that I moved to be with him. A little over a year after that we got married. And now we have three kids. Sometimes it's hard to believe all of this came about just because I logged on.