This morning, Nola decided to get up at 5:00 a.m. and the she had a massive amount of spit up all exocorist style. Not cool, little girl, not cool. It was so bad that we both had to change clothes and the burp cloth caught a lot of it. Nothing says love like sharing massive amounts of bodily fluids before your brain even registers that you are awake.
On a plus note, I've eaten breakfast, dinner is in the crock pot, and the kitchen is clean. I guess getting up this early does have some advantages. She's now passed out in her car seat on the kitchen table. Don't judge me people! She actually likes her car seat better than her bouncy seat. I know, such a weirdo.
What stirred me to write this morning? A pair of shorts. Yes, because when I sleepily walked over to my pajama drawer to change out of my newly-soiled clothes, I pulled out the first pair of shorts that I saw, which happened to be shorts that I bought a day before I went to Gatlinburg with Aaron in December 2000. Yes, Walmart specials that were like $3. Let me just say, they still are in perfect condition. Take that name brand clothing! I will also say they are the most unflattering things ever and look like they are part of school gym uniform. Don't you love a good high wasted short? It's a good thing I was like 10 pounds lighter then.
The shorts brought back a flood of great memories. It reminded me of where we started out and how we got to where we are now. I've almost gotten rid of the shorts a million times, but I just can't seem to do it. Who knew I'd have emotional attachement to a $3 clearance item?
So, I figured I would write the story of where we began. It may bore you to death, but I'll walk around in a love-induced haze all day in my 11 year old, unflattering shorts feeling like a million dollars!
Who knew when my now sister-in-law was trying to fix me up with her brother that he would be the love of my life? I sure as heck didn't. I kept telling her that I wouldn't date her brother becuase if I didn't like him, then she would get mad and not talk to me anymore and I didn't want to lose her as a friend. It might help if I told you that they were super close. In fact, the day I meet him, he came to Dillard's, where we both worked, because the two of them were going to dinner and movie together.
I refused to even meet him, so she sprang it on me like minutes before he came up to our department. I tried to go hide in the luggage department. Yes, I really did, but she marched him over to me anyways. Later, Aaron told me that he was mad that she insisted on him coming in because he didn't want to meet me that day because he hadn't shaved or showered. I'm grateful for her persistence, but we both wanted to kill her that day.
So, there we all stood next to the luggage. I can't remember all of the conversation, but I remember talking about school and finding out that we were both Biology majors. I also remember my dear sister-in-law saying, "Wow, do you feel the sparks? There is definitely chemistry here." My cheeks just got flushed thinking about that moment again. She's very lucky that I didn't do bodily harm to her later for that comment.
Fast forward a day or two. Aaron called up to Dillard's to ask me out. I was awaiting his call because, Amara, the pesky friend and sister, told me he was calling to ask me on a date and told me that I would say yes. The kicker is, that when he called, a customer answered the phone and pretended to be me. I can not make this stuff up. I was standing talking to a coworker, who said my name, and this couple did a walk of shame over to me. The lady says, "Are you Renee?" I said yes reluctantly because I had no clue who these people were. She proceeded to say, "I did something bad" and told me that they were looking around in cookware when the phone rang, no one was around, so she answered it. It was Aaron, who asked for me, and the lady said, "This is she," so Aaron asked her out, and she actually asked him to call her back, so that she could think about it. Thanks a lot, lady!
My first thought was not, there goes the love of my life, but instead, Amara is going to kill me. I never thought that he would call back, but luckily he did, and I explained the situation. I could tell that he didn't really believe me, (really, who would believe that story) but he asked me out anyways. It was Thursday, he asked me out for Friday. I already had plans, but instead of telling him, for fear he would just say forget it, I asked him to come along with one of my friends and I to see a local band play.
What I didn't tell him was I went to every show that this band had because I had the biggest crush on the lead singer? Can you say groupie? I mean, not a little crush, like follow the band around for more than a year. In my head, I thought one date to appease my friend and then on to dating that lead singer.
The date was interesting to say the least. My friend got totally trashed, so I spent the night chasing her around and making sure she didn't get in trouble. I don't know why fate didn't want us together, but she tried her best to mess everything up, including sending my crush over to hand deliver a flyer to me for the next show.
Do you know what I remember the most of that first date? It isn't the intentional-step-in-front-of-my- date-to-hand-me-a-flyer-to-the-next-show move that the crush made or the constantly looking for my drunken friend who managed to disappear on me all night like she was ninja. It wasn't the the drive to the date where my friend was flipping through Aaron's cd case (Aaron had gone into a gas station, leaving the two of us in his truck), and looked at me and said, "This is never going to work," based on his musical taste. Nor was it, my own thoughts of him being cute, but not my type when he picked me up for the date. What I remember the most about our date, was that after knowing him for a few hours, at one point in the date, I was leaning against him and his arms were around my waist and it was most comfortable feeling in the world, that I feel asleep with my head on his shoulder on the drive home, and that when the crush handed me the flyer, I remember thinking, "Okay, I got the flyer. You can move on now" because he stood what seemed like forever with inches between us. Not only these things, but I kissed him. I never kissed anyone on the first date. It was my thing. I just didn't do it, but that night, I couldn't help myself.
I should have known with all these things that something big was happening. If not these things, then the fact that our second date lasted from 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. We went Christmas shopping for his family, went to lunch, a movie, to dinner, and then I came back to his house, where he insisted I come in and meet his mother. Did I mention we held hands almost the entire time?
So, where do the shorts tie in, you're wondering? Our third date. On our third date, I met all of his friends at a Christmas party. Little did I know, Aaron was planning on asking me to go to Gatlinburg with him and a handful of them, but before he could, his friends actually asked me to go with them (shout out to Lea and Terri!). He was so mad that they asked me before he could. After they told him they had asked me to go, he actually drug me out of the apartment into the breezeway and asked me if I would like to go to Gatlinburg with him. I said, "Yes, of course," and then he kissed me...and then his friends opened the door cheering because they had watched the whole thing through the peep hole in the door.
Now, enter the shorts. So being a poor college student, I had no money at all. With what little money that I did have, I went to Wal-mart and picked up some new pajamas from the clearance racks, so at least, I would look good for him at night. No, not lingerie, some high-waisted, ill-fitting gym shorts and another pair of plain gray cotton shorts. It must have been love for him to stick around!
What followed after that trip was a whirlwind of dates and time spent together. Some highlights: A date to a now-closed cajun restaurant where we consumed a whole bottle of wine and had trouble walking out together (need I mention that I had never had wine before), many nights with him teaching me how to play pool and hanging out at a pool hall, him abruptly pulling over in an empty parking lot on the way home one night to ask me if I wanted to date exclusively, lying under a star-filled sky at a soccer field, time spent watching movies with his family, and talking to him on the phone until the wee hours of the morning, when he absolutely hated talking on the phone.
We moved in together after eight months, were engaged at a year, and got married 10 months after that. The rest is history.
I found my soulmate in a sea of millions. I love him even more now than I did in the beginning or when I said, "I do," almost 9 years ago. When he kisses me, I still get tingles from the top of head down to my toes. So, I'm going to hold on to these horrible shorts because they remind me of how lucky I am that I've had almost 11 years to live this life with my best friend by my side.
