Dating, or lack thereof

Thanksgiving 2006, or The Night We Became an Item

As I've mentioned previously, we got married pretty quickly.  Okay, insanely quickly.  Sometimes we look at each other and say, "Did we really do that?"  Oh yes, m'dear, we sure did.

When we met, we didn't intend to even really be exclusive.  We were just looking for... well, honesty, for one.  For someone we could get used to dating again with.  We met on October 30th, 2006.  The night before Halloween, the night after his 25th birthday.

Now, I want y'all to look at the picture above.  Go on now, I'm waiting... You see that caption?  The one that says Thanksgiving?  Yeah, we threw all that non-exclusive, dipping our toes back in the water nonsense right out the window.  The car window, that is.  Going about, oh, I don't know, 50 mph.

It all happened so fast.  He was such a gentleman (or so I thought!)  and really made me laugh.  He cared deeply about his family and friends.  He was a hard worker, and, damn... did I EVER find him sexy hot attractive.  OK, so maybe I thought all of those things.

He took me to meet his friends.  All at once.  Not just friends, either... people he had gone to high school, then college with, and then subsequently transported all of them out to where we live now with him.  He made me let him buy things.  Ate every meal I cooked for him (**swoon**).

He didn't make a move, at all.  I held his hand.  I kissed him.  I was the forward-momentum.  Yet we both felt it.  That spark, I mean.  You know the one. Where you're not sure exactly what it is, but it's something, and by golly it's something special.  Over the course of 5 weeks, we fell in love and realized that it didn't matter how or when, we were going to be together for the rest of our lives.

We didn't say it, not at first.  We each refused to be the first one to say those three words.  We'd look at each other and grin up a storm, though.  We got to the point where we had this... this nod.  We knew what it meant.  It was an understanding, that we got the feeling.  That it was mutual.  But still, we played chicken with the vocabulary.  It was awesome.

I don't remember who said it first, or when.  Which, in a way, saddens me.  It hasn't even been 4 years since we've met and I can't remember that? Maybe he can remind me.  I remember the sheer joy of it, though. I mean, yeah, we had the nod.  I knew that much.  But nothing compares to the words, the publicizing of those emotions, right?  So, we were in love.

love-a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person