Mary-Keith: The Story of Us

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

The Story of Us

This is a story all about how...did ya sing it in your head?...eh hem...all about how I met my main squeeze Philip.

We went to the same high school but at different times I graduated in 2007 he transferred in the following fall and graduated in 2009.

There it is. Out in the open. He is younger than me. He is 2 years and 2 months younger than me to be exact.

So like I said we went to the same high school but we didn't know each other then. We actually met in college in September 2011. We had a class together and I recognized him the first day but I was kinda embarrassed because I only knew who he was because of mutual friends and Facebook so I text my friend and said "That Phil kid from OCS is in my class, but I'll probably never talk to him. It would be weird"

Then 2 days later I said "you went to OCS, right?" ...that didn't last long.

This is us in class before we started dating. I cannot fathom why he liked me, no make up on, didn't do my hair, nothin' . The story goes that he was pretty much instantly interested in me and I did not want anything [romantically] to do with him because he was younger. I would go so far as whenever I was texting another guy I would causally put my phone in a place where he could see it just so he wouldn't get the wrong idea. [basically I was a giant jerk face]

So for two months we hung out, studied together, went to movies, went to dinner, I even invited myself into his house to meet his family and yet I was convinced I did NOT like him. I would just CONSTANTLY talk about him and go ON and ON about how "what if a girl dated a guy, two years younger than her, wouldn't that be WEIRD?" and everyone knew who I was talking about, I fooled no one. My dad told me "why don't you just focus on being friends with him and if something happens, great. If not, you have a great friend"

After about 2 months of this I, literally, woke up in the middle of the night and said "oh my gosh I think I like Philip" . A few days later was November 8th and we had plans to go shopping and then to a concert that night. Our class got out early so we went to Starbucks. It took me over an hour to get the courage to spit out "ya know that thing you've been trying to get to me talk about; well we can talk about it now" and he smiled and said "well I like you" and that was that. We were dating.

This is the very first picture we took as "boyfriend and girlfriend" I was so nervous.

3 weeks later he left on family vacation and I looked at engagement rings with my mom. When you know you know.

We said "I love you" January of 2012.

And in February of 2012 my dad got diagnosed with a brain tumor.

[I hate talking about this time in my life because it was not that long ago and it still hurts. But it is part of my story, a apart of our story so it needs mention.]

After surgery to remove the tumor the surgeon called my family back into a small room and told us my dad had a glioblastoma grade 4 (GB4). A very aggressive kind of brain cancer. That was probably the worst moment of my life. I don't remember if we actually had this conversation or if it was unspoken but I looked to Philip and said "this is it, my life is about get really hard - you're either in or your out" and he was in.

This picture is us and my dad at a benefit some people put on to help us take care of medical expenses.

He stuck by my side for the darkest, scariest, worst, most painful time of my time. He managed to give me some awesome memories outside of the terrible ones. He remained positive and hopeful and let me cry whenever I needed.

July 28th, 2012 we went on vacation with his family to Florida. While we were there he asked me to marry him!! Even though I had suspicions I was completely blown away and happy!

After our week in Florida, our engagmacation, we returned home and 2 weeks later my dad passed away.

Philip was there for me. He helped me get through. Focusing on the wedding and starting our life together pushed me on. I had to rewrite my vision of my wedding day without my dad walking me down the aisle, without a daddy/daughter dance. But instead I got to replace that image in my head with Philip at the end of the aisle.

We got married on June 14th, 2013. Easily the happiest day of my life.

Now here we are, just over a year later even more in love than our wedding day. Trying to figure out life together. We know that no matter what happens we will always have our faith and we will always have each other and we can get through anything.

So what about you? What is your love story?

This post is re-posted from my Weebly site but I had a lot of new people follow me since then so I revamped it and added it again. Sorry if you've already read it :)