How I Met Your Father - Part I

A few people have asked about how I met K.  I guess I should probably start from the beginning.  Meaning the period of time right before I met him.  I've never really gone into detail about my life story or many of the major events in my life other than the birth of my children.  The death of my mother was a critical turning point in my life.  One day, I'll tell her story, which also became my story.  But for this particular entry I'm going to focus on a few months after she died.

See?  Here I am.....oops...wait...haha...I'm not 21 in this picture!  But I am kinda cute!

I was 21 years old, carefree and young with my whole life ahead of me.   I was going to college pursuing my life-long dream of becoming a veterinarian.  I was in the first semester of my second year.  My mother fell quite ill, so I decided to take the semester off to be at home with her.  I took her to her doctors appointments & such.  When she died, my world pretty much fell apart.  I spent the first few months deep in the depths of grief.  A close friend at the time, who was more like a sister to me tried to get me to go out and pull myself out of the hole that I was in.  So I did, reluctantly.  It was through her that I learned about the interwebs.  I did not have a computer.  I had no idea what the internet was or how to even use it.  Sheltered?  Umm...yeah!  But I found it amazing.  It was so cool how you could talk to people from all over.  I knew I had to get in on this!

Without going into detail about my life, its kinda boring anyway, I wasn't much of the party type.  Yes, I was 21, but I hadn't been in a bar until I turned 23.  Gasp!  Look, you are talking to a chick who ate her first taco at 21 years old, what do you expect?!  I spent much of my time at home and with my dogs.  Breeding & showing Bulldogs was something my Mom & I both had a passion for, so even though she passed away, I felt she had left me this legacy and I wanted to keep it alive.  But with that lifestyle came loneliness.  It is pretty solitary just raising puppies.  The most social interactions I ever got came from the dog shows.

Showing dogs is my most favorite sport, especially when I win!  Here I am winning Breed with my Heart dog, Whitey.  I am 22 years old.

 So in October of '98 I had saved up enough money to purchase my first computer.  With a whopping 333MHz processor.  Sounds ancient now doesn't it?  But it was one the of the faster ones of the day.  I surprised myself at how quickly I set it up.  Who knew I was such a geek so tech savvy?  Next I went out and got hooked up to the internet via....dial up.  Wait!  There is no need to wail in horror!  We couldn't get DSL where I lived.  So it was that or nothing.  It served its purpose too.

I logged into Yahoo! Chat, which now is defunct.  Shyly, I introduced myself and soon friendships began to blossom.  I met several people who I still talk to this very day, as well as K!  Crystal is my internet sissy.  I love you, girl!  Val is also my internet sister.  She also claims that she is responsible for K & I hooking up.  We let her believe that.  You should check out her blog, Mind Mumbles sometime.  She is hilarious and just an amazing writer, she makes it seem so effortless!  I also met Josh...my redneckiest friend in the world, who one day I am going to make him take me fishing since he lives like...RIGHT UP THE ROAD FROM ME!  He didn't then, but he does now!

One night though, it was really quite late I was in the country music rooms of Yahoo! chat.  This is where I spent most of my time.  I was raising a litter of puppies and it was almost time for their next feeding, so I would chat in between during the late nights.  I'm not really sure when this person entered the chat room, but somehow we both became involved in the same conversation.  He seemed nice.  Was respectful and polite.  Feeding time arrived and I never gave it another thought.  It was just like any other night.  Or was it?

Most of us who knew each other in chat usually logged in at similar times.  Josh & I were apparently insomniacs because we were on the East coast while Crystal was in Western Canada, Val in the Mid West and K was on the West coast, in California.  Seriously, I couldn't have found someone who wasn't COMPLETELY across the country from me? Alas, I digress.  This meant that I was logged in usually during the wee hours of the night/morning.  Which wasn't really a big deal since I was up all night raising puppies.


Here is where things get a bit fuzzy.  Cut me some slack, I was usually punch drunk from lack of sleep so that is why I can't remember exact details.  I don't remember exactly how K and I began our private conversation, but we did.  My first impression was that he was funny, extremely quick witted, engaging and disgustingly charming.  He was not flirtatious though.  Val messaged me and asked if I was talking to him, I told her I was.  She didn't say much more about it at the time.  


Our chats became more regular.  We began waiting on one another to show up and I clearly remember getting considerably happier when he came online.  I was getting to know him and I liked what I knew so far.  We discovered that we had many things in common.  From our values to our ideas about life, politics and even religion for the most part.  In a nutshell we were cut from very similar cloth.  After some time we exchanged photos of one another.  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  I thought he was the handsomest, sexiest and dreamiest guy I had ever seen!

I was smitten, twitterpated, call it whatever you like.  Apparently, he was too.  Lucky me!  We went on for a while with midnight chats and got brave enough to move on to the telephone.  After about a year we decided to meet.   He flew here.  I was never so nervous in my life.  Honestly, I wasn't sure we'd hit it off face to face.  Things like that can really open your eyes.  You never really *know* someone until you meet them face to face.  For me, after meeting, I thought I was in love.  Nah, I knew it was love.  He was nice, courteous, charming, decent, laid back and non-judgemental. Perfect.

March 2000 - When we first met face to face

 Self-doubt & fear rose its ugly head shortly after he left though.  I began to tell myself that I was being silly and not to expect much more than a passing hello from him again.  Even though things went so grand while he was here.  I always had a hard time believing someone could love me.  There would be another visit...much to my surprise.


To Be Continued...