2 Years

Today Alissa and I celebrate 2 years of being a couple. 2 years ago today, Alissa and I decided to take the next step and date rather than being best friends. Here is our story.

We both finally realized how important we were to one another when I was off camping for a week in Yosemite with a bunch of my buddies. We had really started to get close in the months leading up to my trip and talked on the phone daily. When I was in Yosemite, my cell phone didn't work. Only one of our cell phones worked, so I had to borrow it every couple days to call her.

On the day that I was supposed to come back, we were going to see the Mighty Ducks in game 6 of the Stanley Cup finals. The whole time I was in Yosemite, all I could think about was her. I kept telling my friends that I was finally going to take our relationship to the next level. On the way home, I told my friend Mikey that I was going to ask her to be my girlfriend that night. On the way home, we talked a few times. The first call was to tell me that the tickets for the finals fell through, but that we should still get together to watch the game. I was stoked because that meant we would be alone. A couple hours later she calls back and says that our friend who was dieing of cancer asked if she could watch her child while she got some rest. I was bummed, but what am I going to say about that? Finally, I get another call saying that our friend found another sitter, but that she is house sitting. At this point, I am just going crazy. I decide that I am going to wait a day to ask her out because the day has been draining as it is. I finally get home while driving like a madman from Yosemite. I get cleaned up and meet her at the house she is watching. It was so great to see her. We decide to go the grocery store and make dinner before the game is going to start. After dinner, we settle in and watch the game. After the game she brings me a letter that she wrote me while I was gone. It basically said that she didn't realize how much I meant to her until she couldn't get a hold of me while I was gone. She said that she wanted for us to be more than friends. Now, I am sitting here reading this with her sitting next to me. I don't know if I am reading this right, but I don't want to read through it again right then. So, I say thank you and we sit there in awkward silence for the next hour or so. At that point she is thinking oh crap, I read all the signs wrong. She asks me if I am getting tired because of the long trip.

I say yes and it looks like I am going to leave. Finally, I just lay it all out and tell her how I have been feeling about her for the past 3 years. I explained that I wasn't sure that I had read the letter right. It was just words on a page because I couldn't comprehend it. We talked for at least an hour and I was finally able to explain all the feelings I had for her for so long. I met her right after her husband left her on her birthday several years back. After about a month of knowing her, I fell hard for her. I knew that it would be a while before she was going to be ready for any type of relationship though. Every time I wanted to ask her out in the past, God shut the door quickly. Alissa would say something like guys suck right before I was going to ask her out. Or she just started this book that has her not date for 6 months as she starts to heal. I decided that it wasn't meant to be, but I valued her friendship so much. I didn't want to ever lose her. On my trip to Yosemite, I finally decided that if I didn't date her, I would eventually lose her anyway because no guy wants his girlfriend/wife to have a guy as their best friend. It was nice to finally tell her all of this. She told me how she had been feeling as well over time, but that she wasn't ready. We know God brought us together at just the right time because any other time in our life wouldn't have been right. After that night, we haven't been apart for more than a few days. It is quite amazing.

We were engaged about 7 months after we started dating and married 9 months after that. We have had some amazing times over the past 2 years and I look forward to many more to come.