Once up a time, in a galaxy far, far away…oh wait, I got distracted for a minute.
The story of us. Guess I’ll start at the beginning.
“Us” had quite the interesting start, for sure. Danielle and I were acquaintances in college for probably a year or so before we got together. We both attended at various times Campus Crusade for Christ and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In the fall semester of 2002 things were not going well with my current girlfriend. As Danielle mentioned in her post, we started chatting on IM shortly before Theresa and I broke up.
I won’t get into all the details of what happened after the break up, but looking back on it now, it was probably preparation for some other hard “break ups” (with churches, friends, etc.) that we’ve gone through in our married life, but those are stories for another day.
Danielle and I began dating not long after Theresa and I broke up. I totally (or totes, if you prefer) invited myself over to Danielle’s brother’s (Derek’s) soccer game during the middle of the week, and my mom kinda flipped out on me a bit. I mentioned I was going with a friend and that the friend was a girl. I definitely got the, “Jared – what are you thinking?!?!?” from Mom on that one for sure.
I was pretty nervous as I sat in the car in Troy waiting for any sign of Danielle and her sister. And then meeting the parents. You never know how that’s gonna go, but we hit it off from the get go. I think her dad (Will) had me at “Mountain Dew” and “video games”.
I could just say the rest from there is history, but what fun would that be?
I continued to follow Danielle around like a love sick puppy dog, from that point on.
I guess I should back up and mention that Danielle always had this “mysterious” vibe to her. She wore tall boots (sometimes) and darkish clothes, and was super confident. No, she wasn’t dressed like Trinity from The Matrix, but there was definitely something more to her, I just wasn’t sure what that something was.
I’ll never forget the night she spoke at, I believe, Campus Crusades. I couldn’t tell you what all she said, but I remember it made a huge impact on me and was sort of the spark of the “hey, there might be something MORE to this girl” for me.
Also, Danielle mentioned she came to borrow some movies from me. That’s true. What she failed to mention is that she basically threw herself in front of me (the movies were on the shelf above my desk) while I was working (or probably playing) on my laptop. Totally innocent, I’m sure, but I just figured I’d throw that in there.
From then on, Danielle and I were pretty much inseparable, which was good, because a lot of friendships were lost or severely strained for a while, so it was pretty much “us against the world.”
I proposed almost a year to the day we started dating, and we were married a few months later (GREAT stories for another post).
And now, here we are, almost 8 years of marriage later. I won’t rehash everything we’ve been through as a couple, but I feel like we’ve seen ALOT, especially for the (relatively) short amount of time we’ve been together. From day 1 we determined that the “D” word was NEVER on the table, and I’m so glad we did that. There were moments when throwing in the towel would have been super easy, but my life WOULD NOT be the same without Danielle, and that would be awful.
Even after almost 8 years of living together, it’s still hard work. Even on the little things. Sometimes (a lot of times) I forget the mundane stuff (where shoes SHOULD go, trash, you name it), and I know it drives Danielle crazy to no end. Sometimes she wants stuff done RIGHT NOW, when, in truth, it can wait a bit (even if she’ll tell you otherwise ) Sometimes I just need my space (probably since I’m an only child), and Danielle wants to be together all the time (probably something to do with coming from a bigger family).
We both have our quirks and things that drive each other absolutely bananas, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Adjusting to life with a baby has been HARD. There’s no two ways around it. Unfortunately for all of us, I spent about the first third of Fity’s first year fighting severe anxiety and depression (yet another post for another day), and while I was “there” I was pretty much checked out for that time, and that really sucks. I know already it’s been used for a greater purpose, but I wish that hadn’t been the case. I’m working on learning how to be a good dad, how to play and interact (I’ve never been a huge small children fan), learning to help out, learning to adjust to it being “the three of us” instead of “the two of us” and so many other things. But, again, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Danielle mentioned we’ll cover the gamut of topics on this blog. Some you will identify with. Some you won’t. I’m sure there will be times you disagree. Please keep reading anyway. And please give your feedback. The blog will be better for it, and we will all be better for it as well. We’ll step on some toes, but that’s ok too.
So, there we are. That, in a nutshell, is the story of us.
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