Met my wife in the choir at church -- there's a small Catholic college smack dab in the middle of the University of Alberta campus, and it very quickly becomes a second home to Catholic students, which she and I both were -- back in 2001 (my second year of school, her first). It took me about four months to a) determine that she wasn't seeing anyone, and b) work up the courage to ask her out. But I did after Mass on January 13th of 2002, and even though I'm pretty sure I flubbed the line (so to speak) she agreed to go out with me, to a fundraising event for the group from the parish that was headed to World Youth Day. They'd booked one of the clubs at West Edmonton Mall, evidently.
It was a pretty fun date, too; we stopped for dinner at a nice restaurant near campus (sadly, it no longer exists), and while I wasn't much of a dancer back then, I gave it my best shot at the club. And I kissed her goodnight (just on the cheek, but she still thought it a bit forward -- in a good way) after I dropped her off back at her condo.
That's a pretty typical start to things, but I don't imagine the rest of the relationship was all that typical. Only a few months later, I had to move to Rocky Mountain House, a town about two hours away, for a summer job; the relationship suddenly became "long distance," but only for a few months. Still, there was a bit of tension there. And then she got sick -- really sick. Actually, she still has whatever it was that struck her (something to do with her skin, but all these years later we've still no idea exactly what). And as a result of the meds that various doctors put her on, she developed all kinds of mood changes. I was changing too -- engineering was sapping a lot of my strength and good nature as I struggled with the weekly workload -- and we were always arguing and fighting. We broke up, got back together, broke up again...it was a right mess.
She moved to Whitehorse, in the Yukon, for eight months (for a nursing practicum), and I moved to Rocky Mountain House for work for a while, but somehow, we always managed to keep in touch...and somehow, we overcame all our struggles and got back together.
We were married in October of 2007, and welcomed our daughter into the world in October of 2008. That's us, on our wedding day, in my avatar.
She was the first girl I ever asked out.
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