How We Met...

So here it is, I really cannot wait to have kids, just for the purpose of telling the story of how we met!?! "Of course I'm bias, but I think our story is just so unique and romantically satisfying to hear! Its full of all the good stuff from: first attraction to passion, to love, then eventually loosing touch. That usually happens when two people are right but its the wrong time...Don't worry though, this story like all satisfying love stories, ends well:)

It all started with that first step, boarding a flight to Anchorage, Alaska in 2003. I was in the midst of a really exciting time of my life! Freshly eighteen, out on my own for the first time, moving 3,000 miles from home to spend 12 months living and volunteering in this gorgeous state. My time there will forever be remembered as a magical, because it was the year I met him!

On February 2, 2003 I boarded my first flight bound for Alaska, a place I definitely never saw myself moving to, at eighteen years of age! I will always remember Alaska as a magical place...It was well into the summer of that year before I met him...You thought he was going to be one of my house mates, right? lol...Well please read on because this story is is full of unexpected twists and turns... I remember I was in a military chat room on yahoo, bored and wanting to talk...And there he was, a beautifully lite yellow smiley face smiling back at me...POP! He messaged me... Although I swear to this day that my mouse was hovering over his chat button to do the same. We quickly discovered that there was an attraction, however both he and I were involved with other people; He was stationed in Fairbanks and I was in Anchorage... Let me just say that we did not go to these chat rooms looking for this, but it happened...Wow...Now what? We talked, respectfully, for another two weeks, when it hit me that I had found the most amazing man I would ever met. This whole time he had thought I was paralyzed and in a wheel chair but continued to talk to me and show me such kindness, and yes like I said, there was that attraction....I couldn't believe it, most men wouldn't have given me the time of day had they thought I was disabled...I was speechless....I countered with the reply, "what made you think that?" My yahoo profile said abit about me which read that I had been hit by a car twice that year and had attended a wheel chair race just a few weeks ago. I had been hit yes, but not severely hurt and the wheel chair race was an event coordinated by the company I volunteered at for that year. It was a race for people with disabilities going from Fairbanks to Anchorage. The funny part is that he put 2 and 2 together and realized that we had met before this..."what?" I said..."well not officially" he said, " but I've seen you..." I couldn't believe it and I wanted to know more...He told me he had seen me on the side of the road while he was passing by on his motorcycle. I thought to myself, he had to of seen me while I was in Fairbanks working the wheelchair race... Apparently I had been wearing the exact same clothes that day as the picture on my yahoo profile; The only one he had seen of me yet, it was then that he realized he was chatting with the girl he saw only weeks before on the side of the road...This is getting crazier and crazier I thought...I couldn't stop the attraction I had for him and neither could he...So what did I do...I pulled the plug, told him that I liked him but didn't want to hurt the man I was currently with and he understood; he felt the same, so we parted our ways...

That year ended as I found myself, once again, on a flight home bound for Nashville, TN...Over the next 3 years I sent him the occasional hello, merry Christmas and he did the same, but no conversation ever emerged from it. We never forgot one another, not once...I would talk about the amazing guy I had found to my sisters on our girls night outings and he would talk to his friends about the girl he let go all those years ago...It was after I had been with my boyfriend, off and on, for four years that I finally woke up and wanted to cry! I had spent four years on a man that didn't love me and lost the only man that ever really did. I had to find him...

I knew that he was pretty computer savvy and the age of Myspace had just taken off, so I typed in the email address I remembered him having, praying to God that it was still active and I would see his face smiling back at me. So with a deep breath, here we go I thought...CLICK...My heart about leaped out of my throat...There he was with that perfect smile holding a fishing pole over looking a lake...Next deep breath, is he single? The page couldn't have scrolled fast enough if it tried. I finally found it, relationship status...SINGLE! It was then that I read something that made my heart leap into my chest, once again; He was over in Iraq fighting the war...I instantly sent off one of the first, of many, myspace messages that would re-kindle our friendship...But it wasn't home free from here; my ex seemed to aways get in the way and why I let him is beyond me. My only reason is that a religious leader insisted to me that my ex was the one God had intended for my life....I am religious and I believe that God plans people for your life so I was torn...I respected this leader very much....It was in fact my sister Mary who was then, and is now, a minister....Wow...I didn't want to be responsible for messing up three people's lives. Should I fallow my heart and go after the man I love?

It was yet another year of heart ache for us both as I struggled with my head vs. my heart... Robert had already come home from Iraq and continued to fight so hard for my heart...He was a true solider in those long hard months, fighting for what he believed in...US...The big thing was, we hadn't even met yet! Holding onto the idea of one another for four years without one physical meeting, who does that really? I finally came to the conclusion that God wasn't a God of confusion and heart ache and that he wanted to see me happy...I had enough of this roller coaster and this book was coming to a COMPLETE end...On September 9, 2007 I drove to Columbus, GA where he relocated so we could be together. It was finally our chance to shine after four years. Four years later ladies! The meeting was wonderful and exciting and everything, NO EVEN BETTER then we had hoped...He proposed one year later, we had a three month engagement and finally said those two magical words, "I do." becoming Mrs. G.I Joe forever and always...