Storytime

"How did you meet?"

It's a normal question that as a couple you get asked from time to time.  Depending on who is asking or how interested they seem there are many different answers I throw out to this question.

"We met at UK."

"We lived in the same apartment building."

"We were both Young Life leaders."

"We had lots of mutual friends."

All of these are true statements.  But none are the story of the first time we met, the first time we spoke to each other, which was on April 13, 2002... exactly 10 years ago this week.  Get ready for a long post.

Once upon a time... I was nineteen.  I was a freshman in college, living in a tiny dorm room and enjoying the freedom of an easy first year class load and plenty of free time to make new friends and hang out all day long.  I do not think I appreciated this enough.  Now that I sit at my desk from 8 to 5 each day, I wonder if 19 year old me realized how wonderful afternoon naps and late night adventures to Taco Bell were.

Sadly (and somewhat shockingly) this was before digital cameras had taken over.  Sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday, but then I remember that I didn't have a cell phone or digital camera and I realize a lot of time has passed since then.  The point of this digression is to tell you that unfortunately I don't have very many pictures of my freshman year, which is a shame from a historical standpoint and because I looked better then than I do now.  When you don't have a job, it's much easier to spend the whole summer laying by the pool reading magazines and working on your tan.

Just another carefree day of college fun

I had been involved with a great ministry called Young Life in high school and I was going through training to become a leader at a high school in Lexington.  Matt was already a Young Life leader and we went to the same weekly meetings, but we never interacted.  I sat with my friends, the other new leaders, and he was part of the older crowd that already all knew each other.  By spring of 2002 I knew the name "Matt Wheeler" but I'm not sure I could point out exactly which one he was, I could probably just tell you that he led at LCA.  Similarly, maybe Matt could have told you that I was one of the new leaders at Henry Clay, but I'm not sure.  So sorry, no big "love at first sight" story where we caught each other's eye across a crowded basement (that's where our meetings were held), it's possible we even sat next to each other not knowing that someday we'd mean everything to each other.



The 2001-2002 class of first year leaders in training



On April 13, 2002 a group of Young Life leaders went to Jacobson Park.  There might have been a cookout, or snacks at least, I don't remember much about this part, but there was a picnic shelter and maybe some frisbee tossing going on.  We were both there, but as usual did not have any reason to interact with each other.  As it became dark and the park was closing, the group decided to head up the road to the $1.50 movie theater.  (It just occurred to me that if my grandkids read this someday, they will be stunned to hear first that I had no cell phone, and second that you could see a movie, although not a new release, for $1.50.  Oh kids, 2002 was swell.  Gas was under $2.00/gal, music could be downloaded for free, and you didn't have to watch out for hoverboards when crossing the street.)

Upon arriving at the theater somehow the group decided to see a film called The Mothman Prophecies.  Never heard of it?  Good.  It's awful.  As fate would have it, I ended up sitting near (maybe next to?) Matt Wheeler.  I can't remember if Anne was in between us or not, but I do remember that both me and my BFF Anne were terrified of this movie (it has creepy, suspenseful, disturbing images) and we found out that this guy, Matt Wheeler, who was sitting right by us had seen it before.  Naturally, we asked our new omniscient friend to tell us what was going to happen so we could prepare ourselves for upcoming horror, violence or spookiness.  He would not divulge any spoilers.  In fact, we both seem to recall a bit of an argument where I was pleading for some clues as to what was going to happen in the film and he adamantly refused to ruin the ending for me, something about "waiting to see what happens."  He was really annoying me.  Hmph.

Umm... yeah, even the movie poster is freaking me out.  I don't care that Richard Gere is in it, everything about this movie was creepy, I can't believe I spent $1.50 on something like this!

So there it is, the story of the first time we talked to each other, the story of how we met.  In  a dark theater, squabbling over information about how a terrible movie was going to end.  It was only a few weeks after that the semester was over and I headed off to Summer Staff at Sharptop Cove in Georgia for the first part of the summer and then lived with my parents in NKY the rest of it.  However, in August I moved into my first apartment on the second floor of a rundown building with dirt cheap rent nicknamed the HOP where a bunch of other Young Life leaders lived.  Matt lived on the first floor.  The building had been pretty empty all summer and Matt had been there alone, so when ours was one of the first apartments with occupants again, he came upstairs to visit often.  The more we talked, the more I liked him.  By October, I'm told our flirting was terribly obvious.  In November he asked me out. 



Pancake breakfast for the roomies of HOP 3- McKinley, Jessica, me, and Katie

 Before the end of that year, he did what I had wanted him to do that day at the movies, he told me how the story was going to end.  He told me he was going to marry me.
 

New Balance Christmas party 2002... the next year I would attend as an employee, not a date

Even though he knew it early on, we dated for three years and finished up school before we tied the knot.  I was making a college scrapbook and I had saved the ticket stub from the movies that night, which is how I know the exact date of our first conversation.  Because I'm mushy and sentimental, I've added The Mothman Prophecies to my Netflix instant queue for this weekend.  I'm going to sit and watch a movie I hate with the person I love.  The End.