Poco Mountain Girl

He came into my life like an arrow shot from a bow.

It was a dark and wintry night. I was working the front desk at the International House of Prayer, in conversation with a gardener and raw-food aficionado. There were people milling everywhere. And then he was there, quick and quiet. He had borrowed a stapler from the desk, and he was simply returning it.

From that night on, everything changed.

I was 28, single, free, unattached, and loving every minute of it. I told myself I was completely happy and didn’t care if I ever got married, so when I met him, I just wanted to be the proverbial “friends”. But with David, I didn’t call the shots. Everything about him demanded entrance into my neat, quiet, life. He pushed until he found a way to sit next to me in every meeting, in every class. He told me funny stories and made me laugh till I nearly wet my pants. I thought about him day and night, and at the end of every day, I told myself how much I didn’t like him, how he just wasn’t “my type”, and I gravely commanded myself to STOP laughing at his funny jokes, since it was leading him on.  And the next day I would be laughing with him again. It was the happiest time in my life.

But it was also one of the hardest times. I really tried not to “lead him on”. Every time he asked me out, I very nicely said, NO (with a big, “I don’t really mean it” smile, he will tell you). But I did mean it, kind of. I had a pie-in-the-sky dream of what kind of perfect, untouched-by-the-world prince I would have IF I ever did want to get married. And this ruddy boy from New Mexico, who possessed what seemed to me to be more life experience than 3 of my lives put together, just didn’t fit the bill…although he was only a year older than me.

But he never gave up. I think he knew he had me. He happily agreed to be “just friends” and a moment later asked me out again. And again and again and again, all that spring. After what seemed like the longest 2 months of my life, he won me. I finally realized I loved everything about him: his silliness, his tenderness, his strength, his black hair and little red goatee, his thoughtfulness, his resilience, the way he took such good care of me and never asked for anything in return, his eyes that smiled and turned green when he was happy. And once I knew it, I just knew it. There was no one who could ever be more perfect for me. Everything he had done, everything he’d been through, just made him better, richer, sweeter, and more worthy of me.

We had the greatest summer I think anyone has ever had, and we were married before the end of the year. I still love that boy more than anything (except maybe a little girl that’s half made of him) and I’m so grateful for him. I love my life with him – he’s made it so good, and he’s still as loving and selfless with me as he was that first spring that he worked so hard to win me.

Today, 7 years from that fateful night we met over a stapler, I’m stapled.

I love you, David, and I will always be your girl,

and your Valentine, forever

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 13th, 2011 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Celebrating, Lion Man. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.