How The Jeffersons Fell In Love, Part One

You know who I don’t really talk on the blog?

My hubs.

I’ve written a few posts in the past, but I don’t think I’ve really written the “story of us.” I’ve always said I wanted to write it down, get the words out of my head so when we’re old and grey we can remember the details vividly and share it with our grandkids.

So. From the beginning. *ahem*

I met my husband my very first day on campus as an undergrad. I was 17. I was moving into the dorm where he was the assistant hall director (a graduate student). He was 22. He claims he doesn’t remember meeting me, except that I kept bugging him for a ladder to help me get into the top bunk. (He never got me a ladder.)

That whole freshman year, I was intent on making him notice me. Some might call it “stalking,” but whatever. Around October, he caught me outside shivering during a hall event and he took his jacket off and gave it to me to wear. I swooned.

But after that one gentlemanly act, he kept his distance. He told me he didn’t want to date someone as young as me. Then I turned 18 in November (he turned 23 a couple days later). I thought I’d be more “acceptable.” Still a no go.

Later that year, he let down his guard a bit. He asked me if I’d like to go to a gospel concert on campus with him. Of course I said yes. We went and I couldn’t believe how incredible I felt. It felt magical. Like even if I tried to be happier, I couldn’t. This was the apex of happiness.

We walked back to our dorm around 10 p.m. and I went to my room, he went to his. A half hour later I showed up at his door. Just to talk, I swear. He invited me in and we spent the next five hours talking and watching movies. Brown Sugar and Barbershop. To this day, it’s one of my favorite memories. Yes, it is comparable to the joy I felt giving birth, or getting married or graduating college. A five-hour conversation with this man changed my life.

Sometime during the conversation he asked me if I would come with him to his old college town the following day. I immediately said yes. Was this a real date? Who cares? I’m just happy to be with him again. 

It took me three hours to pick out my outfit. I settled on a one-shoulder top and jeans with wedges. When he picked me up, I could tell he had just vacuumed out the car. This felt right.

He walked me around the campus where he got his undergraduate degree and showed me the kissing bridge, where they said if you kissed someone there, then you were destined to get married. No, he didn’t kiss me. That seemed to be a bit much for a first date, if this was really a date at all.

Then we went to his friends’ house where he introduced me to his crew. One of them had a pet lizard that looked like an alligator. Was it an alligator? I don’t know. But he later told me that they liked me.

Then we went to Wal-Mart. (In his defense, Wal-Mart was the only place to go other than campus.) After wandering the aisles for a bit, doing some “If we had our own apartments” window shopping, I was getting hungry so he took me to Applebee’s. Even though I had had boyfriends before, this was my first time going to a sit-down restaurant with a man and having him pay the bill. This was new to me.

We didn’t even do anything all that special but it was just getting that one-on-one time with him that made it memorable. I loved being around him. I loved how I felt about myself when I was with him. I loved how easy he was to talk to. I loved how sexy he was. I loved how I felt a magnetic pull to him, like I could try to resist but it would be pointless.

It was that type of strong attraction that led to our unplanned pregnancy two years later…

Read part two and part three.