The story of us. (Happy 9th anniversary!)

(I started this on Tuesday, Aug 31st)

Tomorrow is Nathan and I's ninth wedding anniversary.
We have a long history together, kind of like those people who say "We've been married for 9 years, but have been together for 20 years," with our "together" being defined as knowing each other/being friends/being good friends/dating/being friends again/being good friends again/getting engaged/getting married.
We don't remember ever "meeting," I just remember seeing him running around the halls of Christ Community Church in Franklin, probably around the age of\ 5th grade. It wasn't until we were in youth group, around 7th grade, at church, where we started talking and hanging out a bit. I had a crush on his best friend and would hang out with all of them at any given chance. We liked the same rock and alternative music and didn't go to private school so we were sort of the minority and stuck together. Our group of friends was as close-knit as could possibly be, since we didn't go to the same schools but only saw each other at church. And once we started driving, we hung out more outside of church.

Nathan always had a girlfriend and I eventually started dating his best friend, Joel. But through all of it, Nathan and I remained good friends. He was actually more like an older brother to me. I was a naive little sheltered christian girl and Nathan helped me process the high school world as it was happening. He was also in an awesome band and I loved going to their shows and supporting them.

(Summer before 10th grade, 1993).

(Us with our friend, Matt Mosely, Summer before 11th grade, 1994).

(Spring of 11th grade, 1995).

(Nathan, my brother Jesse and I, my 18th birthday, fall 1995).

In November of 1995, Joel and I broke up, and therefore, so did Nathan and I, a bit. Nathan's loyalty was understandably to Joel, first, and then to me. Eventually, things stopped being weird and Nathan and I hung out again.

We graduated from high school in May of 1996 and in the fall, we all headed to live on campus at Middle TN State University. Joel and Nathan lived in the building next to mine and for a little while, we enjoyed being neighbors.

(In front of the MTSU dorms, August, 1996).

Nathan and Joel's band was gaining popularity, so after one semester at MTSU, they dropped out to pursue their music career. Still, we continued to hang out and go to shows and continue to be close friends. By the summer of 1997, we were hanging out almost every day and finally, Nathan admitted to having feelings for me and wanted to know if I would go out with him. My first reaction was, "Ewww!! You're like a brother to me!" and then, I had to think about his friend, Joel, and how to work that out. After talking with him and figuring our status out, Joel gave me the go ahead to date Nathan, and so I did. We dated from July to December and honestly, that has been the worst part of our whole history.

(My 20th birthday, Fall 1997).

Our dating relationship started out wonderful, but became unhealthy and soon, we were basically dating only so we could still see each other.
We broke up the weekend in December that Nathan was baptized. We were both figuring out our faith in God and Nathan had decided to follow the Lord again and was baptized as a believer. We felt good about breaking up, although it was sad. Things were weird for a time after that, but soon, we were hanging out regularly again.

(Nathan's birthday, Winter 1998).

During the next summer of '98, Nathan was deciding to leave Middle TN and go to Europe to travel for awhile. We were very close again and it was heartbreaking to me to think of him leaving. He was my favorite person in the world and had been, even in high school. I was so sad. He finally left for Europe in September and was gone the entire fall and into the winter.

(Summer, 1998).

During that time, I decided to leave school in the coming January and move to NY to be a nanny. Most of my good friends were leaving and I felt that I didn't want to be left behind. Too, I was unhappy at school, with my major of broadcast journalism and with life, in general.

So two weeks before I was to move to NY, Nathan suprised me and returned to Nashville. It was so great to see him and leaving him there was so difficult.

(January 1999).

While I lived in NY, we would spend long hours talking on the phone, once or twice a week. At some point, our relationship became unhealthy again, to the point that I felt like he was my long distance boyfriend. I viewed Nathan in a weird way, and viewed my life in a weird way because of him. Nathan moved to Seattle in August of 1999, after much thought and prayer. I visited him a few days after he arrived there and it was a strange relational time. It felt too much like playing house at times and it weirded us both out.

So in November of 1999, I called him and "broke up." I told him all of the feelings and thoughts I had and told him I didn't want him to be my imaginary boyfriend anymore. He understood and let it go too. I was free of him and literally felt that I didn't care if he lived or died!

At Christmas time, we both returned home but didn't call each other right away. We were still friends but were giving each other space. By the time we did hang out, we had the best time. We had so much fun! There were no weird undercurrents of romanticism, no weird unhealthy motives, we were just friends. We had a great time together and when we returned to our respective homes, began to wonder what that time meant.

(Christmas, 1999).

When I reflected on my time in Nashville, I realized that I had such a deep love and respect for Nathan and it made me wonder if that was the kind of love one had for their spouse. What I didn't know was that Nathan then began praying about marrying me, wondering if I were the one.

(At that point, after so much disastrous dating for us both, neither one of us were dating. We were both sort of trying to keep our hearts protected and were waiting to literally, just get married, ideally, to our best friend, whoever that would be. We didn't necessarily make this decision together but it happened around the same time.).

We didn't tell each other about our feelings, either. I loved Nathan, with a love that I felt was the truest, deepest, most sincere love but I didn't want to pursue him and drive him away. I wanted to respect him and so even though we still talked frequently (probably every three or four days, on the phone, for a few hours), I didn't tell him the place he had in my heart.

He too, kept his prayers and desires a secret from me so that even when I visited Seattle again in June of 2000 (after moving back to Nashville from NY), he didn't tell me that he had realized that I was the one and the stress of keeping that secret from have him stress headaches!

(At a Sunny Day Real Estate concert, Seattle, Summer 2000).

At the end of that trip, as I was boarding my plane, Nathan said that he would have to let go of me and trust God with my life. I thought it was strange that he would say that, but since I was planning to go to Europe in August, it made sense that he was wanting to let me go and have my adventure.

Before I took that trip, we were on the phone in the wee hours of the morning and had a moment of deep understanding. I stopped and said, "See!? We are so close, too close. We either need to get married or not be friends anymore. I can't take this!" Of course, Nathan was on the other end, trying not to spill his secret--he didn't feel like it was time yet.

While in Europe, I spoke frequently of my best friend, Nathan, who lived in Seattle. I even said once that I would consider living in Vancouver to be close to him, that the only way I could live in Seattle is if we were engaged.
When I returned from Europe in October, I went back home to Nashville to work and save up money again. Nathan came home for Christmas, again, and we hung out a bunch.

On Saturday, December 23rd, we spent the day driving down to Georgia, to see the home and grounds of the folk artist, Howard Finster.
That night, we went to church and then after that, went to hang out at our favorite place, since, for December, it didn't seem to be too cold. We headed for the Natchez Trace Bridge. We walked out to the middle part, over the road, and sat and talked. We sat cross-legged, facing each other and Nathan began to talk about having feelings for me. He wanted to tell me that he had been praying about what to do with these feelings and wanted me to pray about whether or not I wanted to respond to these feelings. I sat there, with a smile on my face, as I had a feeling that some sort of relational culmination was coming at this time, that something was going to have to change.
(The change, I thought, was going to be long-distance dating. Nathan was in school at the time and everything in me guessed that he wasn't ready to get married now, that he would want to finish school first.)
So I interrupted Nathan and said, "See, I knew it! I knew this was going to happen!"
And Nathan replied, "Well, I have a ring, and I want you to be my wife. Did you see that comin'?"
I froze. I laughed and coughed. I was in shock. The whole time he had had a ring in his hand and was fidgeting with it, in the dark, building up the courage to say those words. And the funny thing is if I had ever imagined a marriage proposal from Nathan, I would have imagined it happening on this very bridge. But for some reason that night, the thought never occurred to me.

He told me he wanted me to think about it and pray about it, but I didn't need to. I said yes immediately and was so thankful to finally be able to be IN LOVE with Nathan! It was awesome. Because we were going to be out so late, we had already arranged for him to come home with me and stay the night in my brothers' room. My dad and my brother, Joel knew what was going to happen. I was sharing a room with my sister, Bethany, and I woke her up when we got home and told her that Nathan and I were engaged! And in the morning, I got to tell my mom. She was so happy. Little did I know that she and our friend Vicki had been praying for us to get married!

I moved to Seattle in April of 2001.

We spent the spring and summer planning our wedding, to be held in Nashville, and then went home the last week of August to prepare. We everything ourselves and so our wedding was alot of work. Many of our friends traveled from Seattle to be in our wedding and even though it was stressful getting ready for it, our wedding was beautiful.


I am so so thankful to be married to Nathan. He is truly my favorite person in the whole world. He is my best friend and I love living life with him.
God has richly blessed me through Nathan and our marriage.

I look forward to the next nine years together!