The Dating Days

I was talking to MissJan yesterday and at some point in the conversation it came up that dads really take the backseat when a baby is born. Not necessarily with the wife (or maybe in some cases very MUCH with the wife, I don't know) but just in general. When I talk to people now its always "How's William", then "How are you?" and then Austin comes third, if at all. Or I hear from people "I miss William" or "I want to see William"...sometimes I'm included in there as the carrier of William (not as Amanda for sure) but Austin gets left in the dust. I've been told that's just how it goes. Then I was reading a blog that I have started following (and as a side note: ever since I wrote the post about the blog world my blog following has gone from 2 blogs to 10) and the writer is involved in the challenge to "Be the wife your husband needs you to be".

I'm not sure where or how this challenge got started, but I've seen it on a few blogs. It started June 4 and goes into August. There are topics each week to focus on, and I think all of these women are in discussion groups together and blog on their own - not sure if any of this is ever relayed back to the husbands or not, but I'm guessing that is part of the challenge. I don't want to be in discussion groups, I don't know any of the people involved in this, and I'm 4 weeks late getting into it...so I'll just have my own session by myself. It'll be my own party and I can do whatever I want! Things are better that way anyway :) The sessions are called Marriage Mondays - mine won't always be on Mondays, and it may not always be on the same day of the week. I'm just going to march to the beat of my own drum here.

I'll start from the very beginning (a very good place to start...) Week One: Remember The Dating Days

Deciding where to start the discussion on "dating days" isn't easy for Austin and me. I could start from the very, very beginning; back in 1997. But the first time we "dated" I think we saw each other outside of church maybe twice. I was in 7th grade, and he was absolutely the shyest 8th grade boy I had ever met. We were in Sunday School together, though we went to separate schools, and I was friends with his brother's girlfriend so I think it just made every bit of junior high "sense" for us to date. But, like I said, we never once actually went on a date. Austin likes to try and give me a guilt trip for breaking his heart twice, but I just laugh at the thought that his heart was possibly affected in any way when I broke up with him in 7th grade.

But the second "heartbreak" was more real. And I knew it. I didn't talk to him much between the first time I broke up with him and the second time we started dating, but again I was friends with his brother's *new* girlfriend, and we had established a larger group of friends at church. I wasn't in Sunday School with him, or any of them for that matter, but we did spend time together on the weekends. Our group of friends was split between 3 high schools, and I was the lone junior high kid, so for the most part none of us saw each other in school. I don't know why Austin decided it was a good idea that he ask me to be his girlfriend on the night that his brother and I were in a huge fight and I was steaming mad, but then again his brother and I were in fights a lot so maybe he just figured it was as good a time as any. We already had plans to go to his homecoming dance together, after my mom finally gave in and said I could go, so the natural progression was to become his girlfriend.

We dated for about 6 months, and this time I'd actually say we dated. We went to movies, went out to eat, spent time together on weekends, and of course saw each other at church. I'd still say he was the shyest 9th grade boy I had ever known though. He wasn't much for talking on the phone, but what we were good at was writing letters. This was before texting, before email, and before instant messaging on the computer (or at least before the 2 of us had access to those modes of communication) so our letters were the old fashioned type: snail mail. We'd write each other once or twice a week. I don't remember what we wrote about - I can't imagine what we had to write about. But I always ran to the mailbox, literally, when the maillady stopped by so I could see if I had another letter from my heart throb.

Austin told me he loved me about 4 months into the relationship, and he was always far more into me than I was into him. I never told him I loved him back - and looking back, I can't imagine that felt very good! But I knew that I had no idea what that truly meant, and I had no idea what I was feeling anyway, so I wasn't willing to throw that out there unless I knew I meant it.

6 months into our relationship my dad passed away, and 4 days later I decided I wanted to break up with Austin. My friend Amanda and I were on our way to see Titanic for about the eighth time, and the idea just popped in my head. I remember saying, "Let me call Austin really quick before we go". So I did, and I broke up with him. He asked for an explanation which I did not have. I still don't really know why I broke up with him, but the best reason I can come up with is that I was just out of sorts and my life was so turned around that I didn't know my right from left. I had no business having a boyfriend anyway.

I went into high school a few months later, got busy with band and friends, and started attending a new church where a lot of my friends from school went. I would visit my old church maybe twice a year, and I kept up with Austin's mom as my Mary Kay Lady. I think I did it to secretly keep tabs on what he was up to, but he was a big, cool football star at a different high school, not to mention he always had a girlfriend...I didn't have a chance in the world. To be honest, as much as I did like to keep tabs on his whereabouts and hear how he was doing, I'm not sure I was interested in dating him anyway. How serious he was about me at such a young age was pretty scary! So, over the course of the next few years Austin and I just kind of lost touch. I can honestly say I never went long without thinking and wondering...but I tried my best to keep the thoughts out of my head. It was my first puppy love, I'd think of it forever right?

6 years after I broke up with Austin I ran into his mom at church. It was sometime towards the end of my sophomore year of college. After we got caught up on how she was doing and how I was doing I asked about Austin. She told me that he had *finally* broken up with his high school sweet heart (bleh) and he was preparing to deploy that summer. She said he'd be home for a couple of weeks in June and that she knew he'd love to hear from me, so she gave me her cell phone number and told me to call while he was in town. Well, as luck would have it, one week before I had my calendar marked to call I put my cell phone in a cup of water and fried it. There would be no calling Austin. I was slightly disappointed, and after telling Alexis this she encouraged me to send him a card or something. I told her that I wasn't sure that was such a good idea because I knew how he had always viewed me, and I wasn't sure I was interested in jumping in the deep end. She kept nudging me though, as only a good friend can. I finally got the courage to send him an email by copying his email address off a forwarded message my brother had sent to both of us(not a card, but still). I was shocked when I obsessively checked my email 2 hours later and had already gotten a reply from him.

We began emailing in July of 2004. What started as a weekly commitment became a two or three times a day commitment by the end of the year. I finally had to accept that I was in farther than I had planned to be when I found myself paying $2 per minute for sub par internet connection in our hotel in Hawaii just to see if he had written.

In March of the following year Austin came home for 2 weeks R&R from Iraq, which coincided with my spring break perfectly, and we spent every second possible together. In all honesty, if I were his family I would have been hurt by the attention he gave to me - a girl that just reappeared a few months earlier - rather than them, but I guess families are pretty understanding. An hour after I dropped him off to fly back to Iraq for the last 3 months of his deployment my mom looked at me and said "you're going to marry him aren't you?" To which I replied, "yes". She knew it, I knew it, and I'm pretty sure he knew it too.

He got home in June of 2005, we both spent most of our summer in Houston (together of course) and then in the fall I went back to school while he went back to Killeen. When I helped him move into his new place, we were unpacking his dresser drawers and what I found knocked me on my heels: he had kept every letter that I had written him in junior high. He was definitely years ahead of me back then! We visited each other on the weekends, talked nonstop, and in December when he got orders for Buckley AFB here in Aurora he asked if I'd come with him. His report date was 3 weeks before I was finished with school, so the timing couldn't have been more perfect, and I can't think of a place I would have rathered move than Colorado. A few weeks before he left he proposed, we moved to Colorado and 1.5 years later we were married.

So I'm not sure which benchmark I'd use in describing the dating days for Austin and me. I do know that he has always loved me in a way that I originally didn't know possible, and that it took me a long time to learn the depths of that kind of love. One of his coworkers, after meeting me for the first time, said "Wow, Austin's not quite the asshole when you're around". I'm not sure what kind of soldier he is, I hear he's a very good one so I'd guess that comes with a pretty rough presence, but with me he's always been putty in my hands. Its ok though, because I am equally putty in his. He'd stop at nothing to make me happy, which has resulted in me being one of the happiest, luckiest, and best treated wives in the world. The dating days were fun, but they were only a glimpse into my future.