I love my husband. There is no qualifier. There is no but. As in, “I love my husband, but…” There is and. I love my husband, and he sometimes breaks things. He sometimes says things that make me blink 432 consecutive times in the span of five seconds. I get exasperated– what half of a married couple doesn’t? But lest the internetz think that I have anything less than doe-eyed adoration and love for that man, I thought this a good time for a story. The story of how we came to be. This song would be titled “Dawn will, Dawn will…Stalk You.”

I met Hubs on a job interview in March of 1999. I was getting out of graduate school, and having spent 2 years as far as possible from my family, I was ready to return to what I was missing out on. I was smitten from the first. I thought he was a.dor.a.ble.

I didn’t know this at the time, but I kinda caught his eye as well. He volunteered to be my host when I visited campus. He left me waiting for an hour and a half for my tour of Springfield. I left without him and wandered the town. He drove me to the airport the next day in a Honda Accord largely constructed of duct tape. Maybe you’ve met my husband? Because driving you to the airport at 5am is something he just does not do…. Well. Mostly he speaks in grunts before 8am. I got the job. (He wasn’t my boss, folks, he was a peer.) However, I assumed after the cool reception during my on campus interview that he was not interested.

Which meant that I was to become obsessed with him. Because I totally dug on unavailable men. I began to stalk him like a rock star. I found every excuse to be around him. I chatted up his friends. I even sent him flowers anonymously. My dad and I sat five rows behind him at a football game (and to my chagrin, he was with a girl) and I told my dad, “that’s him. That is the man I am going to marry. Everything about him is for me.” These are the exact words I used, and I remember it like it was yesterday. I shot lasers out of my eyes at the woman he was with. He was and is the only man I have ever pursued since Ben Cochran in the 6th grade. I wanted that man to be mine. And this flagrant football-watching girl was in my way, y’all.

Eventually, he was to refer to this woman publicly as “his partner.” I was mortified. I had no idea he had a girlfriend. So, I ‘fessed up about the flowers. I apologized, told him that I was attracted to him, but didn’t realize he was in a relationship. That I didn’t want to cause problems (yeah, right.) Then he admitted that his “partner” and he had been broken up for some time. And try as he might, they didn’t seem to be getting back together.

Let the full-on stalking commence!

I made a conscious effort to wait at least three days every time I asked him out. Since he already knew how I felt, I was completely and utterly without pride or self-respect during this time. He had 1 million reasons why we shouldn’t date. I had one million and one why we should. He was attracted to me but… blah blah baggage… blah blah coworkers… blah blah place in my life… I didn’t listen to any of it. I feigned bravado that I never for a second felt. I sweated buckets every time I called him on the phone (from my apartment across the intersection from his apartment.) I whined to our friends (by this point mutual) about my unrequited feelings.

“Losing me would be the dumbest thing you ever did,” I told him. “I am the best thing that has ever happened to you.”

Seriously, people. Even I wouldn’t date me if heard that kind of creepy talk. But I knew then, inexplicably, that I needed to push as hard or harder than he did. And he was one stubborn SOB, that’s for sure. Every couple of weeks, he would consent to doing something in public with me. Always in secret. Always as a friend. Most times during these outings I spilled something on myself out of nervousness, and he cast furtive glances to make sure no one saw us. We spoke for hours on the phone about anything and everything. He was so funny, and so, so smart. I felt like we had been bumping around this universe on a collision course for each other. Always, I told anyone who knew, “everything about him is for me.” But in public, he never acknowledged that we were more than co-workers.

Months passed this way. Finally, in November, after rejecting dates from other men and an old ex-boyfriend’s marriage proposal, I decided to throw in the towel. I felt like I had given it my best shot. And nary a kiss had passed. I was heartbroken. I really believed, every minute of those four months, that he was the person that was meant for me. But it was time to reel in my pride. I stopped calling. I accidentally made out with my old trigonometry professor from college. I had dates. We were professional but not personal. And I was so upset.

After a few weeks passed, our mutual friend asked us out to the bars for her birthday. It was supposed to be a bigger group, but ended up being just four of us– two of my closest friends in Springfield, and Hubs. There was music. There was fun. And, there was lots and lots of Jack Daniels. All of the sudden, my dance train had a very friendly caboose.

“I thought you didn’t like me,” I slurred.

“Ohhh…. I like ya.”

The rest of what happened is a making-out blur (Actually, that is a lie. I remember every moment of that night, because I didn’t ever want it to end. I was sure the next day that we would both be back to pretending it never happened.) We were totally unprofessional in his new Accord in the parking lot between the two residence halls we were running at the time. (Not totally unprofessional, get your mind of the gutter! I didn’t give up the goods (at that time!))

We dated in secret for the rest of the academic year. No one but our close friends knew we were together until his mother became terminally ill with cancer and I started taking time off to be with him and his family. By that time, he had already taken a job somewhere else. In a matter of months after he left, I also quit and stalked him across the state line to where we live now.

I love my husband. And he is all things to me– wonderful, smart, funny, selfless, selfish, exasperating, silly, a great father, romantic, thoughtless, sweet, and kind– at one point or another. I don’t think I was really, really alive until we met. At the very least, I was, unaware, walking around as half of a whole. He is the sun I have chosen to orbit around. He is my warmth, my sustenance, and sometimes, like the sun, a huge pain.

When I choose to blog about the funny or frustrating things that are a part of my relationship, I hope that this story is the lens you stare into my sun with. Not only is he wonderful, I chose him. Repeatedly. And possibly in a manner that is prosecutable.