Who Knew?

Ten years ago today, my life was changed forever just by opening my front door... 

 

On the other side of that door was my best friend, returned home from boot camp. This beautiful, blond haired, blue eyed boy who had stood with me through thick and thin for four years before. I had missed him so much while he was gone to boot camp, and especially worried because it was four days after September 11th and the whole country had been thrown into chaos. But he was my best friend and he was home!!!

 

photo taken September 15, 2001

 

 I had no idea what opening that door would lead to. It was like seeing him for the first time in a completely different way. We were practically inseparable the whole time he was on leave, but tip-toed around taking the next step. The night before he flew back to Virginia he kissed me for the first time on the front porch of my parents house, and from that moment on, my heart was completely and unconditionally his. 

 

Virginia Beach, VA - January 2002

 

We have survived over two years of a long distance relationship, then another nine months apart while he went to school in Wyoming, then another move to a completely new town where I only knew him and another good friend from high school. We've survived through personal triumphs and hard decisions, marriages of friends and family, deaths of family members and births of others, tons of car troubles and fixes, and of course, the most dreaded question, "When are you two gonna get married?" 

 

October 11, 2008

 

And we've weathered it together. He's kept me grounded when I start dreaming too big and I've pushed him to go for it when he starts reasoning himself out of something he really wants. It's never mattered to either of us that we're not married. We're happy, we're in love and that's all that matters. 

 

October 2010

  

  In February of this year, after over two months of trying to find an answer to his stomach problems, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. While this has completely rocked our world, and sent us down a completely different path then what we'd planned, there have been some things that have not changed. We still love each other, more then ever. And while we can't see that far into the future, and we're never sure of how much time we will have together, I don't have a single regret of how we've spent the past ten years together. Because every day, from that day ten years ago to this one, I've known with everything that I am that I am truly loved and respected by my best friend, and a girl really can't ask for more then that.