I'm not sure how I first came across the witty and fantastic Jessica (maybe her funny comments at Knox McCoy's blog?) but I'm ever so glad I did. I cannot wait to meet my Twinsie at the Killer Tribe conference at the end of March! Today is her wedding anniversary so there could not be a better time to share her TIHWM story. Which, incidentally, did make me swoon. Just as she intended. Enjoy and be sure to connect with one of the funniest gals taking over the blogosphere. You won't regret it.
Buttrams Begin
Depending on who you ask, my husband and I have two different First Meeting stories. Although, by stringent definition of the word “meeting,” this implies an introduction, which CLEARLY puts my story as the front runner for the TRUE First Meeting.
Ironically, we are both from Alabama, but met in college in Tennessee. Hubs transferred in my sophomore year, his junior, because he was recruited to play that one sport that’s not nearly as hard as soccer where you throw a ball into a basket and score points and stuff.
MOVING ON.
Here’s a quick rundown of my husband’s version (you know, just to be fair and balanced).
It was Moving In Day at the college. We were assigned to the same dorm. I roamed around the building saying hello to friends I hadn’t seen all summer, he saw me from down the hall and (promises he actually) thought, “If all the girls look like that, I’m going to like it here.”
BO-RING.
Here’s the REAL version.
We sat at the same lunch table a few days later amongst a big group of friends, and a fella officially introduced us because we were both from Alabama. Funny how that keeps happening.
SWOON.
But…not really.
Fast forward a week or so later when my super friendly roommate had strayed into his dorm room and I went to collect her for the first FCA meeting of the year. I haphazardly invited him and his roommate along, and he accepted. RUH-ROH, SHAGGY.
Fast forward EVEN MORE to the following week when he showed up at the first InterVarsity Christian Fellowship meeting (but without my personal invitation this time). Probably by subconscious design, we found ourselves sitting next to each other in the same breakout Bible study group and afterward, not so subconsciously, found ourselves falling in step as we headed in the same direction back to our dorm rooms.
Maybe it was the cool September breeze or the subtle hint of fall in the Smokies or walking beside the cutest boy I had ever met growing cuter by the minute or the string quartet following behind us playing romantic music. (Just kidding about the string quartet, but you already knew that, didn’t you.)
Whatever it was, something turned that walk home and the conversation growing between us into a catalyst.
And when we parted ways on the second floor, I hurried up to my room, shut myself in, looked my roommate in the eye and said (and I quote), “I think I’m going to know him for the rest of my life.” (Cue opening notes of Aaron Neville’s Crazy Love because it JUST MAKES SENSE, OKAY.)
We became friends. Fast friends. Best friends. Even as we (casually) went on (half-hearted) dates with other people, we were inseparable. There was more than one instance when he would swing by my room after coming home from a date, and we would talk or play chess (seriously, people, nothing screams BUDDING ROMANCE like a game of chess) or run to the dining hall for a late night snack.
And in five months’ time of being best friends, we were in love.
We just didn’t know it yet. Well, we DID, we just didn’t want to tell each other yet.
I was in love with the way we could talk for hours, the exact shade of hazel his eyes are, the sincerity in his words when he would lead in prayer, his quiet strength and dedication to God, to schoolwork, to basketball, the way he’d spot me from across campus and instead of shouting my name he would whistle a distinct two-note whistle and I would instantly know it was him. The way he’d look for me in between classes, in the cafeteria, or in the stands during a home game.
The way he looked at me one night when I unenthusiastically asked him if he was interested in a particularly smitten girl who had recruited me to “feel him out” for her, and he laughed, shook his head and said smoothly and definitively and life-altering-ly, “No. I’m interested in you.”
SWOON.
Yeah. For real.
Jessica Buttram is married to a baller, a shot-caller, mother to a couple of shorties who will one day grow taller. She is not a decent rapper. She blogs for free and tweets for doughnuts. She often has chocolate stains on her clothes, but always remembers to blame them on her kids. She is also your Number One Fan.
