Love Story
Nate and I are in baby mode. We are working through house projects getting ready for little misses arrival. We are at 31 weeks so the official countdown is on. Yesterday, Nate was going through the closet in the soon to be nursery and came across all our old emails to each other from October 2001-2004. The beginning of us. In 2001, I was a 20 year old college Senior and he was a 25 year old 1st Lieutenant in the Marine Corps. I was in Nashville finishing college and he was in Okinawa, Japan. We were familiar strangers brought together by my Mom who felt compelled that Nate needed a pen pal while stationed overseas and guilted me into writing him. I said I would send him one email and that was all I intended to do.
It has been years since we looked at those old emails. It was a reminder of how we fell so easily and unexpectedly in love and the beginning of the journey to this amazing point of being a family expecting our second child.
I am so thankful for these letters. I am thankful to have them to read for myself and thankful that one day, if our kids can get over the mushiness, that they will have them to read as well. It is in these emails of friendship and heart that we learned we loved each other, long before we had our first date. On these pages you can watch it unfold.
I am so thankful for this man that God gave me to love. I didn't have to read many emails to see how I didn't have a chance of not falling head over heels for him, even if I fought it for a while at first. He was (and is) charming, funny, kind, strong, patient, faithful, logical, hard headed, leading, thoughtful and tough. He quickly became my best friend and that has never changed. He balances me, believes the best of me, provides for me, takes care of me, protects me, goes out of his way for me and wants a future with me, still.
Emails led to phone calls which led to care packages and snail mail cards. He then somehow surprised me with a flower delivery while deployed when we didn't even have any email/phone contact because he was in such a remote area. I told my roommate that day that I thought I would marry him. She didn't believe me. My feelings for him scared me and I wasn't ready, so in all the maturity of my then 21 years I told him I needed a break in May of 2002. It didn't take a full month for me to regret it. However, God knew the timing wasn't right yet as I had some growing to do. We both moved on. He finally came stateside October 2002, and I set out to tip toe my way back into his heart. Thankfully, I didn't have to try that hard. We had our first date within his first week home and we were inseparable from that moment on. Nate drove up every weekend from Albany to see me and during the weeks our emails carried on. We were engaged 9 months later and married 6 months after that on a snowy February day in Georgia at the church we both grew up in. For the first time, we lived in the same city and the long distance was finally over.
9 years after our first email and 6 1/2 years after we said "I do," our love story continues and now has legs as we watch our toddler run around our home calling us Mommy and Daddy and our baby girl moves around in my belly when she hears her Daddy's voice. It is deeper and stronger then either of us ever could have imagined in those emails so long ago because in addition to the good times, we've also endured reality. Strain, disappointment, disillusionment and tears have not been a stranger along the way. We've had our highs and lows. But, we've weathered life together and our commitment holds. We now have beautiful children that represent the best of us.
Our love story is a real one. It is ever evolving. It still feels like the beginning but after reading the early pages we're reminded of how far we've come and how blessed we are. It truly just gets better and better as the years roll by. I am a lucky girl.
SHMILY
~Red
It has been years since we looked at those old emails. It was a reminder of how we fell so easily and unexpectedly in love and the beginning of the journey to this amazing point of being a family expecting our second child.
I am so thankful for these letters. I am thankful to have them to read for myself and thankful that one day, if our kids can get over the mushiness, that they will have them to read as well. It is in these emails of friendship and heart that we learned we loved each other, long before we had our first date. On these pages you can watch it unfold.
I am so thankful for this man that God gave me to love. I didn't have to read many emails to see how I didn't have a chance of not falling head over heels for him, even if I fought it for a while at first. He was (and is) charming, funny, kind, strong, patient, faithful, logical, hard headed, leading, thoughtful and tough. He quickly became my best friend and that has never changed. He balances me, believes the best of me, provides for me, takes care of me, protects me, goes out of his way for me and wants a future with me, still.
Emails led to phone calls which led to care packages and snail mail cards. He then somehow surprised me with a flower delivery while deployed when we didn't even have any email/phone contact because he was in such a remote area. I told my roommate that day that I thought I would marry him. She didn't believe me. My feelings for him scared me and I wasn't ready, so in all the maturity of my then 21 years I told him I needed a break in May of 2002. It didn't take a full month for me to regret it. However, God knew the timing wasn't right yet as I had some growing to do. We both moved on. He finally came stateside October 2002, and I set out to tip toe my way back into his heart. Thankfully, I didn't have to try that hard. We had our first date within his first week home and we were inseparable from that moment on. Nate drove up every weekend from Albany to see me and during the weeks our emails carried on. We were engaged 9 months later and married 6 months after that on a snowy February day in Georgia at the church we both grew up in. For the first time, we lived in the same city and the long distance was finally over.
9 years after our first email and 6 1/2 years after we said "I do," our love story continues and now has legs as we watch our toddler run around our home calling us Mommy and Daddy and our baby girl moves around in my belly when she hears her Daddy's voice. It is deeper and stronger then either of us ever could have imagined in those emails so long ago because in addition to the good times, we've also endured reality. Strain, disappointment, disillusionment and tears have not been a stranger along the way. We've had our highs and lows. But, we've weathered life together and our commitment holds. We now have beautiful children that represent the best of us.
Our love story is a real one. It is ever evolving. It still feels like the beginning but after reading the early pages we're reminded of how far we've come and how blessed we are. It truly just gets better and better as the years roll by. I am a lucky girl.
SHMILY
~Red
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