Time to Come Up WIth Our New 5 Year Plan!

One September 4th 2004 I got in my car on my way to East Side Mario's. I had tediously stepped into the world of on line dating a couple of months before under the guise of "just seeing who is out there"...like 99% of the other potential hope fulls claimed to be doing. I was a full time student with a full time job. I did not have time for the kind of social life I had in the past. Unless the pizza delivery man was a real catch I was going to be successfully single until I graduated. I took the future of my lonely self into my own hands then, literally at the keyboard with a catchy introduction and a flattering picture I waited to see who was interested. I had a top ten list I would not budge from. I was not desperate or over 50...I had time on my side so I could be picky. He must be:
1-tall
2-dark
3-handsome
4-educated/intelligent
5-funny
6-free of a criminal record (these are not in order of priority...)
7-kind
8-thoughtful
9-enjoy dogs and children
10-think I am marvelous

Amazingly there were many men on this site that met much of the criteria. It was easy to see after a few emails and a phone conversation that a spark was missing. Then I saw his picture.
He was tall. Dark. Handsome. After spending most of the night hours and into the morning on instant messenger I knew he was both intelligent, funny and on the verge of thinking I was quite marvelous. Was he whole package though? He seemed too good to be true. We spoke on the phone. We continued to instant message for hours (to later find out he saved every one of these conversations). Three weeks later we set up a date. September 4th. 5:00pm East Side Mario's. He was half an hour early...I was five minutes late. I had to go back to the parking lot when I saw him. His grainy emailed pictures had not done him justice. He was REALLY tall, Really dark and REALLY handsome. I wanted to go home and get changed- get my hair done...get a nose job... I was ten minutes late now. This would have to do.

We had fallen in love over a screen and thus a hug nor a handshake seemed appropriate now that we were face to face. He went for the handshake, I went for the hug... We sat down awkwardly becoming multi sensory people. He smelled better then I imagined. His hair was shiny, five o clock shadow just right. His teeth were brilliantly white and a smile, when his eyes lost their nervous edge made me feel like I was glowing. When I spoke he listened, when I laughed he laughed, when his hand accidentally brushed across mine he jumped not quite immediately. There was a spark all right. There was a fire. I didn't want to complete a life without this man in front of me at my side. My Mother and God both witnessed my breathless exclamation; "I will Marry him. We will have lots of babies and be happy forever!" I did, we are and we will be!

We have done so much in the last five years; one eight month relationship, one fourteen month engagement, one wedding, two houses, four cars, one van, a puppy, four job changes and one and a half children later our dreams remain on course.

My feelings for the tall, dark handsome man of my dreams have only intensified as I have watched him grow into himself as a man of fatherhood, faith and family. I am so proud of him. I am so grateful for him, for all that he does and is.
Though intense, these feelings have settled into a place of comfort. It is when occasionally now he will look at me a certain way, he laughs just so or walks in the room at the right time that my stomach leaps in the same way it did five years ago. Those are the moments I am reminded how lucky I am. How lucky we are to have found what is worth more then all else. Love.