Sunday, February 10, 2008

Let's Go Back to the Beginning

"Let's start at the very beginning; a very good place to start."
~Maria, The Sound of Music*

My fiance (FI) and I met on a sidewalk. He'd probably say that we met at a bar, but in actuality we met outside a bar on the sidewalk. I was living in Washington, DC at the time, and he was visiting the city with some friends from Boston. It was a Saturday night, and I was out with my girlfriends in Adams Morgan, bar-hopping. As we walked towards Tom-Toms, I could hear a couple of guys talking behind me. They were discussing how to get to a bar that was recommended to them ... some place called, Pom-Poms? Being the polite Southerner that I am, I turned to them and said "actually, it's called Tom-Toms and it's right down the street. We're going there now, if you want to follow us." And so, they did. I ended up talking to FI for the rest of the evening, and, at the end of the night, I gave him my real phone number (a statement unto itself). The rest, as they say, is history .... sorta.

This story is obviously complicated by the fact that we were living in two different cities and states, and I was moving to Michigan at the end of the summer to start law school. Not to be daunted, FI still called me the NEXT day (yay to no "3 day rule!"), and we talked every day after. We'd email each other long, grammatically correct emails about everything from sports to broadway shows. We were both sarcastic, with a dry sense of humor and a healthy respect for witty quips. We would talk on the phone until 2 or 3 am, or whenever he fell asleep. Our first "real" date wasn't until a few weeks later, in June, when we met in NYC for the weekend. After that though, we managed to see each other every other week until the end of summer. We spent an unbelievable week at the Bellagio in Vegas, and we (only half) jokingly pledged to get married if "Time to Say Goodbye" was the next song the fountains danced to...

And, it was at that point, about a week before I was to leave for Michigan, that I realized I didn't want to live a day without him by my side. So, instead of moving to Michigan, I moved to Boston. Then, not only did I get FI everyday, but I also gained 2 wonderful beagles -- Fritz and Samantha -- to love and cherish. I spent the year working for AmeriCorps and reapplied to all the Boston area law schools, ultimately choosing BUSL. I have never regretted my decision, and everyday my life is blessed.

*What's interesting about this line from The Sound of Music is that FI used to write and record rap songs (yes, my straight-edged stock brokering FI), and he reworked the lyrics in "Do-Re-Mi" for one of his raps.

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