15 Years

18 years ago I stood nervously in a friend’s apartment waiting for a guy I had never met before to pick me up for our first date. We met online when internet dating was beyond taboo. He lived in Louisiana but was moving to Houston and I lived 3 hours north in a town named Tyler. 

It turned out once we started talking online that his parents lived close to me and in fact, I had most likely met them before but we’re not sure. I had waitressed for years at one of their favorite restaurants and they had just moved 5 minutes away from where I was living with my dad, which was in the middle of nowhere.  At that time, the similarities and coincidences were weird but now, I know that God had a plan. 

That night turned into months of dating before the distance from Houston to Tyler became too much and we broke up. But we stayed best friends. Always best friends. 

After two years apart, he came to visit his parents and go with me to my brother’s wedding. At the wedding, my aunt asked us if he was my boyfriend or just a friend. He told her that we were just friends. Her reply was, “uh huh”. 

6 weeks later she received our wedding invitation in the mail and we’ve never heard the end of it. 

After the wedding that night we had decided that we didn’t want to live without each other. We didn’t want to date, we didn’t want to do the commute from Dallas to Houston anymore, we just wanted to be together. 

Today we celebrate 15 years of marriage and all I still want is to be together.

We are total opposites in almost every single way and yet somehow, we fit. 

There’s days he drives me batty. There’s weeks where I drive him crazy. 

He puts up with finding glitter everywhere. I deal with finding computer part shipments on our front step.

I’m a potato girl . He’s all about that cajun rice life.  

He believes that you should move clothes from the washing machine to the dryer immediately.  I think as long as they don’t smell, sitting in the wash for a day or so won’t hurt. 

I’m the right brain creative one. He’s a left brain analytical geek. 

He likes sour and tart candies. Obviously, he’s nuts because we all know that chocolate is the only true candy. 

The world is a rainbow to me. He’s partially colorblind.

The stride in his step is part jolly green giant. My walking speed could be considered on point with a sloth. 

A great night to me is a reading a book in bed. His favorite nights are watching movies that aren’t romantic comedies. 

We don’t make sense as a couple but yet we do.

In the past 15 years we’ve lost family members, gone through job layoffs, had babies, chased toddlers, fed kids going through growth spurts, found a love for dachshunds, taken trips to the ER, lost a child at Disney World, sat on the road for 8 hours trying to evacuate for Hurricane Ike before seeing our community destroyed in Hurricane Harvey, and so much more…..

Life hasn’t been easy but I couldn’t imagine a single day of it without him. Without a doubt, he is my best friend and the person that God made for me.  

I’m thankful for the hardest times in the past 15 years and I’m grateful for the sweetest moments that’s happened in the past 15 years.

Thank you Mr. Byrd for when you claim to love crunchy food when I serve you something that’s burned, for showing up to walk me home at night, for letting me drive when we go somewhere together, for expanding our family with exchange students, for putting up with my inability to remember things, for 1000+ other things that I don’t have time to name, and most importantly, for loving me no matter what. You are stuck with me for life.