how i met your father: our love story, part i

this month, mary at owlhaven is spending two days a week sharing the owlhaven love story, how she and her husband met. i'll be joining her with how i met your father: our love story on mondays and thursdays (and i might stretch into november because we have a complicated story!). if you decide to join us, let us both know!

the first years of high school were rough for me. not in a catastrophic sort of way, but in a 14-year-old-girl-drama sort of way. i was fairly independent and struggled to get along with my parents. in my small-ish high school, i’d made friends with some older kids and wanted to do everything they did. but, more importantly, i experienced a lot of rejection through the youth group at church. i didn’t feel like i belonged or that anyone cared that i was there. before long, i didn’t want to have anything to do with the group . . . or church . . . or God.

my wise parents decided that since that church wasn’t a good place for me, we would find a place that was. we started attending grace church the spring semester before i turned 16. from the moment we walked in, i felt loved.

the youth group was vastly different from the one i’d come from: it was smaller, less clique-ish, had more parent involvement. i spent the summer hanging out with new friends, washing cars, playing volleyball, riding rollercoasters at the amusement park two hours away. the fall was consumed with football watching and playing, chili nights, movie nights, singing in the small choir at church, playing cards.

i didn’t realize it, but my life was changing.

i threw myself into this new church, feeling really loved and accepted outside our family for the first time. as i got to know my new friends, i realized they were different from me. we’d all grown up going to church. we each knew the sunday school answers. we’d sung the same songs our entire lives. i slowly began to realize the difference: they had a true relationship with Jesus Christ. He was a vital part of their lives in a way i’d never experienced.

perhaps i was a true christian before i turned 16. but regardless, over the first year we were at grace, being a christian began to impact the way i lived. i cleaned out my music collection. jennifer taught me to pray. barb encouraged me in my relationship with my parents. bryan challenged me to grow in my relationship with Christ. i began to be excited about sharing my faith with others and wanted to travel overseas on mission trips. i was learning to apply God’s truth to my life. and i was like a sponge.

and then before my senior year, a new guy came home.

i’d never met him but he was the brother of my friend and so we got to know each other. he was funny, he was adventurous, he showed me attention. he spent a lot of time with our youth group and before i knew it, i was smitten. he and i began spending more time together, much to my parents' chagrin. when he left again, at the end of my senior year, i was crushed. he wrote several months later to tell me he was getting married. though i wasn’t ready to marry him, i was heartbroken.

for the first time.

and, all that time, there was a skinny runner sitting in the back of the room, more involved with sports than church. laughing with his friends and making jokes during the lesson. who is this punk, i thought, who can’t pay attention?

he, however, had other thoughts. as he drove away from my parents’ house after my graduation party, he thought, someday, i’m going to marry that girl.

how i met your father: our love story, part v

if you're joining us for the first time, catch up with us.
part i
part ii
part iii
part iv

and, visit mary to read other love stories. mary was only writing for october, but since i got behind, i'll continue to post chapters of our story throughout november until it's finished. enjoy!

the following semester, we emailed quite a bit. in the late winter/early spring, i made my first trip to purdue, where michael went to school. as a freshman, he didn’t have a car, but invited me to come spend the weekend in west lafayette; quite a difference from my tiny school! we attended his christian fellowship. played cards with his friends. cheered in the stands at a big school football game. hung out in his tiny dorm room. played ping pong at the co-rec. almost 11 years later, i still have vivid memories of that weekend – and so does michael.

i was mesmerized by life on a big campus. and by the man i was with.

despite the distance, we spent time together when we could. michael came to visit me one weekend over his spring break. and, one snowy weekend, i even drove two hours to pick him up so we could drive back to indianapolis to hang out with our friends. we were so engaged with each other that it never occurred to us that our parents might be worried about us driving all that distance in the snow. and they were.

though he never said it, i knew he liked me. and i liked him.

as the summer approached, i decided i was going to spend the summer at noah’s ark whitewater rafting & outdoor adventure company. in colorado. over 1000 miles from indiana. the night before i left michael came over to my parents house and we sat on the front porch after everyone else had gone to bed. he had decided tonight was the night to tell me a story.

his story was an analogy of our relationship. and, looking back, it was a creative attempt to express how he felt about me. but, he never actually told me he liked me and so it fell woefully short of communicating what he intended. his story left me confused about our friendship.

in fact, when he drove away that night, i was pretty disappointed. what was that?! i remember thinking. and then, i decided if he could spend a year with me and still not tell me he liked me, i wasn’t going to hang around anymore.

i spent the entire summer around really cool christian guys – handsomely rugged men who loved the outdoors. michael was faithful to write me letters. but when i responded, my heart wasn’t in it. at one point, as i watched one of my co-workers wrestle with a golden lab, i specifically thought, michael’s not the only cool christian guy out there.

i was ready to move on and keep looking.

if only he hadn’t asked to see me when i got back from colorado.

my dad picked me up from the airport and i was devastated to see amber waves of grain and cornfields in place of purple mountains majesty. i was also dreading the pending conversation with michael.

dad dropped me off at michael’s parents’ house and we sat on the swing on the back porch. he wanted to know about my summer. but, even more important, he wanted to hear my response to his declaration of like back in may. i don’t remember much of our conversation. but, i do remember my response.

no, michael, i said curtly. you told me a story. you never told me you like me.

and that was it. the energy and investment we’d made in our friendship for a year was gone. whatever our relationship had been, it was now over.

how i met your father: our love story, part xi

the first few weeks in manila were a blur. we had a lot of decisions to make as a team, yet we hardly knew each other – which adds to the stress of making decisions in a new culture. the three of us girls lived in a large house for a couple weeks, each with our own room. as we adjusted to the newness of everything, i spent a lot of time on my bed with the door shut, crying and thinking. and missing home.

as we moved into our permanent apartment a couple weeks later, things didn’t immediately get easier. but, as we fell into a routine and started working on campus, i did find myself thinking less often of michael.

something amazing started to happen as the days ticked on. God began to teach me of himself in a very deep and personal way. as i mourned the loss of the man i loved, i saw God in a way i never had before. i became convinced of his goodness. his righteousness. his faithfulness.

even when i didn’t understand it.

one morning, as i sat in our garage (which we used for many things, but never for housing a car) with my feet propped against our gate, i read psalm 139.

“…if i take the wings of the dawn,
if i dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
even there your hand will lead me,
and your right hand will lay hold of me…”

those verses became a source of comfort to me over the next several months. from where i’d grown up, i had moved almost as far east as possible, i’d taken the wings of the dawn. i was dwelling in a very remote part of the sea. and still, regardless of my circumstances, God promised to lead and guide me. to be faithful in all his ways and kind in all his deeds (psalm 145). i began to become convinced that God would be good to me, even if it meant heartache for awhile.

slowly and surely, my heart began to heal.

i still had moments of intense sadness. like the time i stumbled across a file of email michael and i sent each other. i mourned the loss of my friend.

like the time i received a cd in the mail from one of my sisters. many of the songs reminded me of michael and i cried as i sat on my bed with my back against the cold cement wall. i mourned the loss of my love.

but mostly, i began to move on.

i moved on changed in my heart. because of the work God was doing, i wasn’t bitter or angry. our first five months in manila were filled with a very real sense of God’s presence for me. i was growing and deepening in ways i don’t believe i could have with michael only an email or phone call away.

i still really, really missed him. and loved him. i wanted to be with him. but i was beginning to imagine life without him. and because of the things God was teaching me, that life didn’t seem so scary. or horrible. i knew that i would be okay if God never brought our relationship to be again.

and then, i started to hear through my friends and family that michael was asking about me. wanting to know what i was doing, how i was, if i had plans to come home over the summer.

as strange as it sounds, my immediate reaction was hurt. and then confusion. when he broke up with me, i understood him to say that he would not pursue me. and here he was, trying to get into my life through my family.

if he didn’t want to date me, why was he pursuing me in this roundabout fashion?

i was confused and distracted, hurt and yet still hoping. my head started to spin and i struggled to get my bearings. all the grief i thought had passed crashed to the surface with those four simple words from someone in my family. michael asked about you.

and so, with the help of an older guy friend i trusted, i did the opposite of what i wanted to do. i spent a week writing the most difficult letter of my life, as unemotional as i could write, asking michael to please stop talking to my family about me.

as i wrote, the rest of the grief and sadness i had poured out of my heart. how i was able to write without manipulation was only an act of God. more than anything, i wanted michael to pursue me.

and here i was, asking him to do just the opposite.

it was the greatest act of surrender i’d made in my life, greater than the sacrifices i’d made in moving to manila, for i knew those were but temporary. here i was telling God this is what i want, but whatever you do, whatever you require of me, you are good. when i finally and completely let go of my relationship with michael, i had no idea if God would bring another man into my life. or if i would spend the rest of my days single.

i cried every day for a week. the day i mailed the letter, i came home from the post office and collapsed in a heap on the shoulder of my teammate lisa. i was exhausted and spent. i cried myself to sleep that night for the last time.

i woke up the following morning, a sunday, with the most intense sense of God’s presence i have ever experienced. despite all the emotion, i knew without a doubt that morning that God would take care of me. with or without michael, i would be okay.

and that moment changed my life.

how i met your father: our love story, part ix

i didn’t really think about marrying michael often, because it seemed so far away – i was planning to be living out of the country for almost two years. and i certainly couldn’t plan a wedding from 8000 miles away.

but, our relationship didn’t seem to be slowing. quite the contrary. i went to purdue almost every weekend in september and early october, usually hitching a ride with michael’s best friend andy. that was the year of 9/11 which left us stunned and afraid. michael and his buddies, one of whom is a marine, talked about enlisting or being drafted. like any serious girlfriend or wife, i hated the idea, but what could i do? i breathed a sigh of relief when these conversations became less frequent.

we went camping with michael’s family in early october and i had a great time – my first introduction to his family’s concept of camping. we sat beside the fire after his parents and sister went to sleep and stared at the stars. my impending move hurled toward us and i began to realize i wasn’t ready to leave this man. but, i had made a commitment to go. besides, michael still had two years left of school. marriage wasn’t a thought.

michael, too, was beginning to realize how serious our relationship had gotten, without either of us intending it to happen. he knew that if he allowed our relationship to continue as i moved, he would be moving our relationship toward marriage, though he wouldn’t have told me that. though we were both in love, he wasn’t sure he was ready to commit to marry me.

and so, one friday night about two weeks before i was schedule to board a plane and leave everything i knew, i rode with andy to purdue for the weekend. andy was going to drop me off and michael was going to bring me home on sunday.

i knew something was bothering michael from the moment i saw him that afternoon. he kept denying that anything was wrong. we had dinner in the dorm cafeteria and then went to the navigator rally, but only stayed for a few minutes before michael grabbed my hand. let’s go, he said.

we walked out to the middle of campus, where it was dead quiet on a friday night. i don’t remember the words he said as he told me he wouldn’t write or call me when i left, but i do remember the instant grief and sadness i felt. and the aloneness. i didn’t even know where i was on campus or how to get back to our friends. i remember asking if that meant we were over. and then, through tears, i said, please take me back to the rally.

i really felt as if i’d been hit by a two-by-four. it was so out of the blue. i was stunned. and grieved. immediately back at the rally, i found one of the staffers, laura, and asked her to pray with me. i couldn’t see straight. and, i didn’t know what to do. so, i told andy not to leave without me that night.

julie took me back to her room where i’d left all my things and i gathered them up. while i waited for andy, i sat in the lobby of michael’s dorm and played the only piano song i knew from memory, be thou my vision.

i remember michael coming to see me before i left and looking at him through teary eyes. i’ll be okay, i said, more to reassure myself than him. and then, with andy waiting in the car, i turned my back on the man i thought i’d marry and i walked away.

when andy and i got back to indianapolis, i still had a thirty-minute drive to my parents’ home. i’m not sure how i made it in one piece – i could hardly see i’d been crying so much. it was late and my parents hadn’t been expecting me, so i knew i had to wake them.

mom, i said from the doorway of their room, before she was really awake. he broke up with me.

and then, like moms are supposed to do, she held me for the next hour while i cried.

how i met your father: our love story, part xii

here's the next chapter of our love story. i'll keep writing, but december is an insanely busy month for us. i doubt i will make much progress until we leave town and i have some emotional space to write.

i'm also thinking through some other posts, but am not sure if i'll get to those. unfortunately, december will probably be a fairly quiet month here at senor elefante because its a very "loud" month in our home. i seriously don't have a night without something planned until dec. 19. *sigh*

stick with me! i promise to come back after the new year.

************

i don’t remember how many days passed before i knew michael had received my letter – from 8000 miles away, i’d sent it priority air mail, hoping it wasn’t lost on its way. but, i do remember that my teammates and i were preparing to leave for a 10 day trip to the province when the email came.

i wish i remember exactly what it said, but the words are long lost in the emotion of the moment. i’m sure it was simple: i still like you and would like to begin to pursue you again. for the first time in our relationship, michael stood the chance of being rejected. he didn’t know my heart still longed to be with him. so, writing to ask me to give him another chance was a bold move.

he’d given our relationship a lot of thought, had been through a very difficult time himself and was ready to begin our relationship again. he later told me, he knew at that moment that if i agreed to “date” him, he wanted to marry me.

there wasn’t an internal struggle for me whether to pick up our relationship. i knew i loved him and wanted to be with him. my heart was still hurt, but i figured that could be worked out. and so, separated by the vastness of the pacific ocean, we began to date again.

it wasn’t until i returned from my trip that we really nailed down what our relationship would look like. i anticipated being in manila for another year. how often would we email? (often) how often would we talk on the phone? (not for awhile and less frequently than we emailed) would michael come to manila to see me? (sorry, i’m a broke college senior, he said) but, i was once again his girlfriend.

and my heart was on cloud nine.

how i met your father: our love story, part iii

i've gotten a little behind with our love story -- sometimes life just takes over and this is an incredibly busy season for us. if you're interested, check out part I and part II. i promise to finish our story, even if i'm still writing over thanksgiving!

we really didn’t hang out much that summer after i graduated, at least not that i remember. i was probably too busy gathering the possessions i deemed important enough to move 1 ½ hours away to my dorm room at school. and, later in the summer, he was probably busy conditioning for the cross country team. our paths didn’t cross outside of church, anyway.

i moved to college and had a great freshman year. i loved being at school and “on my own,” though i was hardly on my own as my parents paid for my car, my school tuition and my cell phone. i easily made good grades without studying much and spent most of my time making new friends. i even broke my nose (for the third time!) playing powder puff football. school was fun. there were a few guys who caught my eye – and i went on enough dates to realize i’d caught the eye of a few guys – but no one i was interested in going out with more than a couple times.

and then i moved back home for the summer. suddenly, my friends were hanging out with michael’s friends and i started seeing a lot of this skinny runner who’d just graduated high school. for the first time, this guy did catch my eye.

we hung out a lot, and i even helped michael throw a party at his parents’ home one weekend. unfortunately, i’d gotten in trouble with my parents and lost my car privileges. michael wanted me to be at the party and drove an hour round trip to pick me up before our friends arrived at his house.

his car wasn’t in the best of shape and he lost his muffler less than a mile from his home. he left it at a gas station, came to get me and then we swung by to get the muffler before getting back to his house. i was too caught up looking at the attractive man sitting next to me to realize how silly he must have felt. at the end of the night when he took me home, we stopped for a sandwich and coke. we talked a lot and laughed a lot. i enjoyed being with him.

at the end of the summer, after i’d moved back to school to be an r.a., we were both home for labor day weekend. michael invited me and his buddy jonathan to watch the fireworks with him. he picked me up, we met jonathan and the three of us hung out while the fireworks boomed over indianapolis. it was a fun night – and would have been romantic under different circumstances.

we both went back to college, michael to his freshman year at a school two hours from mine. we were beginning to spend a lot of time together when we were both home – and just barely beginning to get to know each other. but, i knew him enough to know i wanted to know him better. we started emailing a lot.

we were beginning to move past a friendship. and neither of us knew what the future held for our friendship.

how i met your father: our love story, part xiv

a few weeks after i decided i wanted to marry michael, things in manila seemed to get very intense. looking back, it’s tough to determine how heated it really was. but, two of my four teammates and i felt very unsafe. after a lot of thought and prayer, the three of us made the decision to return home. a week later, we boarded a plane bound for the states.

and like that, i was going to be near to my boyfriend for the first time in our dating relationship.

i was able to move to west lafayette and our relationship continued to deepen. through our rushed decision to return to the states and the situation surrounding that, i had spun through an emotional cyclone. i struggled for months to get my bearings.

to say that impacted our relationship would be an understatement.

add to that the fact that aside from the four months we dated before i left for manila, we’d built our entire relationship from a distance. learning to communicate face-to-face and work out differences in person was challenging.

but we persevered and one week, at the end of july, michael asked me if i’d go on a date with him before his schedule picked up with the start of classes. we planned to spend the weekend in indianapolis with his family and have dinner together on friday.

that morning, i distinctly remember sitting at my desk wondering, i bet he asks me to marry him soon. i bet today is the day.

we’d never talked about us getting married. he’d never told me he loved me. little did i realize how soon that moment would come.

on our way to indianapolis, michael informed me he had plans to hang out with andy when we arrived. i would need to find something to do at his parents’ house for an hour or two. i was annoyed. he wanted to take me on a date, right? not andy. but, i didn’t complain. instead, i hung out at his family’s home while his sister and parents flitted in and out of the house. it was weird, but we’d been dating long enough that i felt comfortable there, even when no one else was around.

finally, michael came back and cleaned up for our date. he’d uncharacteristically insisted that i wear a specific dress and he got more dressed up than normal. we took a picnic basket and blanket to our favorite park where we sat sweating in the muggy july sunset slapping buzzing mosquitoes.

at the time, i thought it was extremely romantic.

as we ate, michael asked me what types of things i find romantic. walks on the beach. picnics in the hot sun. small gifts. notes. and gazebos, i added as we packed up the picnic basket. i find gazebos romantic.

the entire evening, michael made odd decisions that flew by me without notice, especially after he’d insisted on seeing andy before our date. when we arrived at the park, he settled us in the middle of a sunny field instead of under the shade of the trees on our favorite hill. we talked and laughed and as the sun started to set, we took a walk. when he held my hand, he removed my bulky ring which bothered his hand and tucked the ring in his pocket. our conversation was light, skimming and jumping along the surface. we walked around the tall “weedy” grass instead of along romantic paths near the lake.

but, i was so engrossed in the ruggedly handsome man near me that besides a fleeting thought about our picnic location, i hardly noticed.

as we rounded the corner of weeds and “our” grove of trees came into view on top of the small hill, something out of place appeared. something large and white with small lights dancing on the ground. something i’d never seen before.

a hundred yards away, i looked suspiciously at michael. what’s that?! i asked.

i don’t know, was his stiff reply. let’s check it out. and that’s when i knew something big was in store.

as we approached, i began to make out the shape of a gazebo. a gazebo tall enough that michael’s 6-foot-one-inch frame fit comfortably inside. wide enough that he could stand inside with his arms outspread and not touch the walls. he made it, he told me.

i was astounded. i kept repeating, you made this?!

he’d left a dozen roses on the middle of a small blanket decorated with other rose petals. small tea light candles lit the walkway to the gazebo and danced around the edges of the blanket. a small radio played quietly a cd of our favorite love songs.

we danced. under the stars surrounded by twinkling light. we danced to several of our favorite songs. and i kept asking, you really made this? i still hadn’t figured out how he had created such a work of art without my knowledge. it must have taken hours. actually forty-seven, i later found out.

after we danced for awhile, michael stopped. there’s something i want to say.

before i could grasp what was happening, my knight was on his knee, holding my hand. even though i knew it was coming, i was stunned. oh my gosh! this is it!

i love you, he said. i’m a poor college student and i can’t afford a ring. but i want to know if you’ll be my wife.

how i met your father: our love story, part viii

if you're just jumping in to this crazy saga, catch up here:

part i part v

part ii part vi

part iii part vii

part iv

we had a wonderful summer. we enjoyed the sunshine at the park, watched old movies, hung out a lot with our friends, attended a young adult bible study together at ken & barb’s. we drove a lot. michael volunteered to chauffer a friend who was in a wheel chair. he lived 45 minutes away with his parents. each week, i would ride with michael to take scott home and then michael and i would drive to my parents’ house, 30-minutes in the opposite direction.

as we drove along the dark highway, michael would often reach down to grab a penny from the change console of his car. penny for your thoughts? he’d ask, handing it to me. most of the time, i couldn’t articulate the things i was thinking, how i was falling in love with him as we drove around the city and sat on blankets at the park.

we had fun together, laughing and playing games. michael is a leader and his friends look to him to set the pace for what they do. and yet, he doesn’t care what others think. he’d do what he thought was right, even if no one else followed. his relationship with the Lord was foremost in his life and he lived a life of integrity and conviction.

and he was hot. i still remember when i first realized how insanely attracted i was to him. it was sometime during my senior year. i was talking to a group of girls after sunday school when out of the corner of my eye, i saw michael walk into the room. close your mouth, katherine, i distinctly remember telling myself when i’d realized my mouth was agape.

the skinny runner i’d liked two years earlier had filled out and was strikingly handsome. wow.

i also remember the first time i spoke about one day marrying the skinny runner. out loud. i was driving with my parents. while i couldn’t bring myself to actually say the words, because michael had yet to use the word love toward me, i told them our relationship was serious. the real-deal serious.

from the amount of time we spent together, i think they got the idea.

at the end of the summer, right before michael moved back to school, our family took one last family vacation before we girls started moving out. we had a fabulous time on the beach in south carolina. i sat on the beach several evenings watching storms far out at sea, wishing michael was sitting next to me.

before we left for south carolina, he took me on one last summer date. he gave me a dozen roses. i gave him a framed pencil drawing of a castle i’d worked on for weeks.

even if i couldn’t say it out loud, i was in love. madly in love.

how i met your father: our love story, part xiii

here's the next chapter of our story. if you're just tuning in, you can read the previous chapters by clicking the link how i met your father in the labels sidebar. on another note, can someone make me a button for this? or teach me how?

we spent the next several months emailing and it wasn’t until my birthday at the beginning of summer that michael first called. while it looked like we took our relationship slowly this time, we were actually barreling forward. we had enough history to know about each other and the rest of the time i spent in manila was about deepening that relationship.

my teammates and i had planned to stay in the philippines until spring 2003. with that timeframe in mind, i had subconsciously decided i would determine whether i knew michael was the one a couple months before i came home.

as the summer turned to fall, michael entered his last year at purdue. he invested his free time into attending job fairs and looking for potential jobs. he told me all about each opportunity and i listened patiently, wishing i could be with him to experience what he was telling me.

until one night.

we had been talking on the phone when michael mentioned to me a job option for a large corporation which would have him moving around the country every six months for two years, learning new facets of the operations. as a business student, it was a great opportunity. he talked about it as though i would wait for him those two years, living my life hundreds of miles from wherever the job took him.

that night, i realized i never again wanted to live apart from this man, separated by the pacific ocean or several states.

that night, i realized he was the one.

unfortunately, it was about six months too early. or so i thought.

how i met your father: our love story, part vii

catch up with the rest of the story here:
part i part iv

part ii part v

part iii part vi

there’s no way that was michael, i thought, and went about my lazy saturday. why on earth would he be here? almost three hours from his school?

a little while later, the phone rang. it was my roommate sarah. um, katherine, she said in a hushed whisper. you’re never going to guess who i just talked to. she was wrong. at this point, i knew mandy and sarah couldn’t both be mistaken.

it turned out that michael had chauffeured his sister to a voice audition to our music school. while she was busy singing, we picnicked with subway sandwiches on the floor of our university’s auditorium. the singing took place in another building and so the auditorium was quiet.

we talked about little of importance but enjoyed being together. imagining life on the stage in front of us and talking about where life would take each of us.

the next several weeks were like that, random encounters with this man. a group of my friends, including michael, came to our school to watch another friend perform in a musical. my roommate sarah, who practically knew michael’s life-story as much as i talked about him, deserved a grammy for the “naive” performance she gave as she interacted with him that afternoon. really?! you’ve been to finland, too?

we also happened to be home at the same time a couple weeks in a row. i could no longer deny that i still really liked this man. besides, i wasn’t fooling anyone but myself.

i was preparing to graduate and trying to decide what i wanted to do with the next several years of my life. through a random series of events, i decided to take the opportunity to go to manila, philippines for two years with the navigators. our team’s plan was to leave in october.

graduation was especially emotional for me. i was honored with the opportunity to speak at our senior chapel and have lunch with our university president. several of my graduating friends and i pulled a prank on our major department’s office. i had fun attending parties for my friends. and, somehow also managed time to study for finals and pack my belongings.

all three of my roommates were about to be married and knew a little about where life would take them. i’d invested four years of my life at this school and suddenly, without someone to share it with, wondered if i’d made a difference. i cried a lot as we moved our furniture and our apartment again became four empty walls.

i moved back to my parents’ house and settled into their spare bedroom. between preparing to leave for two years, i spent a lot of time with my friends. and, as a result, michael.

the phone call came after a week when we’d seen each other almost every day. michael wanted to know if he could come over to my parents’ house later that night. when he arrived, he convinced me to drive three miles down the road to the dairy queen, which i knew was closed. we sat on a picnic bench and ate icecream michael had brought in a cooler from his house.

i don’t remember much about that night, but i remember the emotions. i was giddy. excited. nervous. what was so important to say that he’d drive 30 minutes at 10pm to say it? we sat under the stars for a long time that night, wondering what would come of our relationship.

i still like you, he said. and if you’ll give me a chance, i’d like to do things right this time.

but i was planning to move 8000 miles away in less than four months. were we really ready try again? what would my move mean to our relationship?

we didn’t have answers to those questions. but, still being young, we held hands. and jumped.

how i met your father: our love story, part iv

if you're just joining in on our story, check out the previous three chapters to catch up:

part i
part ii
part iii

and don't forget, you can read other love stories at owlhaven.


thanksgiving and christmas breaks were quickly approaching – the next time we would both be home and have the opportunity to see each other. over thanksgiving weekend, we attended a party at ken & barb’s house, played cards (as barb would have me interject, we cheated and still lost to our hosts), and sat outside under the stars together. we went with our friends to see the christmas lights downtown.

and, we went on our first date.

michael called me one afternoon to ask if i wanted to “hang out” with him that weekend. as it ended up, hanging out involved dinner and a movie downtown, paid for by him. after a very long wait and an awkward conversation with an older woman who assumed we’d been dating for a long time, we had dinner at the old spaghetti factory. i enjoyed dinner, but i’d always enjoyed our time together. and, i love pasta. it was perfect.

the movie on the other hand, prince of egypt, wasn’t so hot. but, we’d been able to walk around the mall and had a great time talking about school and our families and our plans for christmas break a few short weeks away.

as we prepared to leave, michael was pretty distracted. we left the mall and started walking. it was a crisp november night in the mid-west. we walked, away from our car, for awhile before it was clear we were headed into a not-so-nice area near downtown, away from the hubbub of night life. suddenly, michael looked at me sheepishly. i don’t remember where we parked, he admitted.

amused by his lack of directional sense, i told him we’d passed our street a few blocks back.

i found myself quieter than normal with michael, hesitant, at times, to say what was on my mind – something very unusual for me as the oldest born in a family of three girls. but, i wanted him to lead our relationship, whatever it was becoming, and i knew my tendency would be to take charge. and so, even when it meant having to walk a couple extra blocks, i let him lead as best as i knew how.

and as best as he knew how, he did lead. but our fledgling relationship had an interesting semester ahead.

how i met your father: our love story, part vi

i like the button, so i'm still going to use it, even though it's not october any longer. to catch up on our story, read these posts:

part i
part ii
part iii
part iv
part v

to say our interaction became tense would be an extreme understatement. we avoided each other at all costs – not difficult during the school year, but more challenging when we were both home at our small church. we were both really hurt and frustrated. i was upset because michael didn’t communicate his intentions clearly, but then expected me to be upfront and honest about how i felt about him. and, just disappointed that i’d invested so much into a relationship that was over so suddenly.

i wouldn’t have said it at the time, but i still cared a lot for michael.

i spent a lot of time that year, my junior year, uncharacteristically alone. i was an r.a. and lived in a dorm across campus from most of my friends. as an r.a., i had to be “on duty” on a weekly basis and then twice a semester for an entire weekend (suicide weekends, we called them). i had a lot of time to think and write and process. i invested in my relationship with my family and was mentored by esther, the wife of a chemistry teacher on campus.

my heart began to heal and when the summer rolled around again, i headed back to colorado.

somehow, before i left for the summer, michael and i began to inch toward a friendship again. i don’t remember hanging out, but when i heard he’d be spending the summer in colorado springs, where i often visited my childhood friend, we decided to have dinner together at some point.

when michael finally called me, he invited me to have dinner with him at the navigator’s beautiful castle where he was working for the summer. after dinner, we hiked up a ridge and watched the sunset. incredibly romantic, if we’d been dating.

but, as we talked, we just couldn’t see eye to eye. on anything, it seemed. we got along, but couldn’t seem to understand each other. he was making decisions that i didn’t understand and seemed counter-intuitive to me. i drove two hours through the mountains that night thinking, well, that was nice, but i’m sure glad we’re not dating anymore.

after i came home, though, and launched into my senior year, i realized i still liked michael. a lot, actually. i talked a lot about him to my three roommates. we slowly started emailing again. he was on my mind often. but, i still thought it would never work out.

and then one saturday morning, my roommate mandy interrupted my late-morning shower with a squeal. a guy just stopped by looking for you, she said. i think it was michael!

how i met your father: our love story, part xv

before i could grasp what was happening, my knight was on his knee, holding my hand. even though i knew it was coming, i was stunned. oh my gosh! this is it!

i love you, he said. i’m a poor college student and i can’t afford a ring. but i want to know if you’ll be my wife.

*************

in half a second, i threw my arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. i was so happy that i almost forgot to say yes!

yes! absolutely! nothing would thrill me more. the fact that he wasn’t giving me a ring didn’t matter at all.

we stayed in the gazebo for awhile, dancing to the cd he’d mixed of our favorite love songs and staring starry-eyed at each other. we sure thought we were in love. it was enough for the moment.

after awhile of googley-eyed bliss, we blew out the candles, collected the roses and cd player and started back to the car, leaving the gazebo as a testament of love, declared for the first time that night. we loaded the car, hesitant to leave and bring anyone else into our world.

michael leaned against the car, reached into his pocket and casually said, here’s your ring.

i held out my hand, expecting the bulky ring he’d removed earlier in order to better hold my hand. instead, he placed in my palm a beautiful, simple diamond engagement ring. i gasped in the light of the street lamp lining the park road.

i looked up into his face. really?! i asked. i was stunned. i would have married you without it.

he smiled and his eyes danced. i know, was all he said.

it was perfect. both the night and the ring.

how i met your father: our love story, part x

after crying and thinking and crying that weekend, i decided i didn’t want my memories of my last two weeks at home to be filled with heartache. so, at my request, michael and i actually carried on as we would have otherwise, delaying the inevitable for two weeks. i visited him one more weekend and he came to see me off at the airport. i know people thought we were weird, and one older friend actually called to talk me out of spending time with him, but it was what i wanted. i honestly believed it would be easier that way. and, maybe it was.

i packed as best as i could to live for two years in a country i’d never visited. one of the navigator staff had sent us a packing list of ideas. still, it was hard to know what to take and what to leave behind. i had to pack my life into two suitcases. well, a suitcase and a crate.

we got to the airport with more than enough time to check my bags, take pictures, and hang out before i had to go through security. less than two months earlier, everyone would have been able to accompany me to the gate. saying goodbye before the metal detector was new to me. and difficult.

i’m sure it would have been a tearful goodbye regardless, but my heart was obviously a wreck.

when we first checked my bags, the crate was over-weight. the cost to ship the extra weight was $50 per leg. with four flights to get me to manila, the $200 was not worth it. i sat down on the floor with my crate open in front of me trying to decide what to leave behind.

everything seemed valuable and necessary. my mom, trying to help me, would hold up an item and ask what about this? can it stay?

no, i’d respond. i definitely need that. it goes with me.

a few seconds later, michael would grab the same object. you don’t need this right away. your mom can send it to you. without realizing what i was doing, i’d agree and let michael put the same object in the stay-in-indiana pile.

my mom later told me that it was at that moment she knew that he was a man i could follow for the rest of my life. she had a hard time not treating him as a prospective son-in-law once i left.

miraculously, i held my composure without going into the ugly cry for most of the morning. i’m smiling in all the photos with nary a tear streak on my cheek.

then came the actually goodbye and the walk through security. i’m sure airport personnel see lots of criers, but seriously. it was the ugly cry of all ugly cries. with my small bear orion tucked under my arm and my backpack over my shoulder, i walked away from my family and the man i thought i loved. if i hadn’t been so heartbroken, i would have realized i looked just like i did on my first day of kindergarten. except my hair wasn’t in pigtails.

after i walked through all the security and down the terminal, i turned to wave one last time.

and that’s when the huge sob, caught deep in my throat, erupted. it was like the scene from ever after when danielle’s prince is about to marry the princess of portugal and the princess sobs uncontrollably all the way up the aisle.

that was me. i was the princess. sobbing all the way down the terminal.

how i met your father: our love story, part ii

the first interaction i remember having with said runner was the following weekend, after he watched me wave from my parents’ front porch as he drove away. a group of us were party-hoppin’ and it just made sense for me to ride with him to another graduation party.

daniel, jamie and i piled into michael’s white 91 ford tempo. while i didn’t know daniel or michael well, jamie was the younger brother of one of my good friends, so at least i didn’t feel too weird with these guys. we had a long drive to the next party – the house of a friend who lived a good 45 minutes away. what does a girl discuss for that long with three guys she hardly knows?

as it turns out, all things awkward.

michael was a bill cosby fan and had a tape of cosby’s stand-up comedy. we listened while we drove down winding roads and passed cornfield after cornfield. we attempted to mimic cosby’s fat albert and laughed, captivated by cosby’s story-telling humor.

fortunately, bill cosby is mostly family-friendly.

mostly.

one sketch on the tape caught me instantly. cosby divulges his discovery of midol. he talks about how great the two little pills were a killing his headache and how he quickly became a believer, rushing to the drug store after he took the last ones in his wife’s bottle. he even gushes his surprise that they had no side-effects: his voice didn’t get higher, for example.

he just gets really moody once a month. ba-dum ching.

michael and i were in the front seat laughing, when i realized the back of the car was utterly silent. don’t you guys get it? michael asked.

they didn’t. and, as the only girl in the car, michael insisted that i explain the joke. while each of these guys had a sister, i grew up without brothers. and, even as an 18-year-old, talking about feminine things with guys was just, well, weird. and awkward.

very, very awkward.

i wanted to jump out of the car and walk the 45-minute drive back to my own car.

and when i finished explaining, daniel and jamie still didn’t think the joke was funny. perhaps it had something to do with my incoherent babbling. which had nothing to do, yet, with the skinny runner sitting next to me speeding down the winding road.