The Story of Us

Okay so a very quick update on how we are doing. Matty and I are adjusting well to staying at my parents' house. I think we have finally overcome our jet lag. James is doing well in Thailand. He is eating all kinds of strange cuisine and exploring the locale whenever he gets the chance. They have been keeping him pretty busy, but I think that he is managing to enjoy himself. He is a good man. There was a post on my cousin, Heather's site about how you met your spouse. So I think that even though it isn't Marriage Monday, I am going to share our story.

James and I met a few years ago when he came to visit my now ex-boyfriend and I in Georgia. He and my ex had known each other since middle school. Even though I wasn't looking at James as boyfriend material, I did recognize that he and I had a lot in common and that he was a really great guy. Over the next two and a half years, we got to know each other better through phone calls and his occasional visits. My ex didn't ever seem to have time to talk to James or spend time with him, so those tasks fell to me. So we went shopping and palling around and thoroughly enjoyed each other's company. We had become really great friends. He was engaged to another girl when I first met him, but things went south for them when he got stationed at Ft. Knox. I tried to be there for him as much as possible, not realizing that he had actually thought their split was for the best. What I didn't know was that my very good friend had been slowly falling in love with me. James came down on orders to go to Iraq and so he came to visit with us for one last time before he left. My ex and I were on really rocky ground at this point and had moved back into our parents' homes. While James was in Georgia, I tried to make sure he had the best time possible. Since my ex was working so much and I was recently transitioning between jobs, James came to stay with me. I took him out to different places to shop and eat. We even managed to go see Brad Paisley in a limited seating performance and got his new CD for free. We had such a blast! The reason why our song is "Alcohol" is because it is the first song that we ever danced to, even though it was just the silly drunken swag dance. :0) One night we went out to dinner with my ex and my best friend, Michelle. When the guys went outside for a smoke, Michelle informed me that James was crazy about me. I told her that she was crazy and she said "Jess, he was watching you and actually paying attention when you ramble. Nobody listens to you when you talk." She told me to trust her, that he was completely in love with me. Since I was still with my ex, I didn't do anything with this information, but it sat there in the back of my mind just eating at me. When my ex and I split up a short time later, I turned to James for comfort and support. At this point he was already in Ft. Lewis preparing to ship out. We talked every single night for hours at a time. One night I said that I had something funny to tell him. I told him that Michelle thought that he was in love with me. James got extremely quiet on the other end of the phone. Then he said that she was right, that he had been in love with me for a very long time and that it had killed him because I had been with his friend. I was stunned. He went on to say that he was taking a chance in telling me this, but that he couldn't live with it if I never knew. At first, I didn't know what to do. I was fresh out of a break-up with his friend and my feelings were very mixed. My ex was still in my life trying to work things out. I took some time to really work out how I felt. My ex and I tried to reconcile, but I finally realize how bad our relationship had been and I told him that I couldn't continue it any longer. I managed to look deep inside my heart and found that I had been falling in love with James all that time. Once that realization took hold, there was no turning back. I told James that I loved him too. He shipped out to Iraq, but we started a relationship anyway. Faced with the possibility of forever losing him had shocked me into accepting my true feelings for him. My best friend says that we have the best foundation because we got to court each other in an old-fashioned way before we got married. We have so many very personal emails and letters that we shared during his time overseas. James and I have gotten to know each other on such a deeply emotional and spiritual level over the past few years that it feels like we have never really been apart. My husband is the best man that I could have ever married. I prayed so hard to find the right man to open my heart. God took his time and sent me a man that far exceeded my expectations and desires. I finally found the person who could break down my walls and tame my wild spirit. And now we have a wonderful marriage and a beautiful son. Yes, we may fight sometimes, but we always forgive each other and talk through our problems. And we are stronger for each obstacle that we encounter. We recognize that God brought us together and that He protected James to bring him back home safely. And realizing that has made a big difference. I love my husband. He is a wonderful man who treats me with love and respect. And he is an amazing father to our darling boy. I could never have asked for more. And that is the story of us.