Never Thought this Would Happen

 

   18 Years ago I was suffering from cabin fever. I got into my car and drove to Stillwater to look around. It was warm so I wore jeans, my favourite sweatshirt and a wool sweater. I didn't want any customers to recognize me so I wore my glasses.

   At one of the stores, I saw an ad for a local coffee shop that was built into the caves at the edge of downtown. It looked interesting so I decided to have something to drink. The was a tall, handsome dark haired man behind the counter. I ordered my drink and engaged in a bit of small talk. Once I got my drink, I settled down with a book that I had brought with me. It was a good drink. I liked the coffee shop.

   A few days later, a friend and I went to see the flower show at a conservatory in St. Paul. We weren't ready to go home after looking at the show, so I told her about this interesting coffeeshop in Stillwater. We decided to stop for a drink.

   We got our drinks and went into the back room. The guy who served me my drink earlier was there with a guitar about to play. We got a table. I listened to him. He was pretty good. Some of the songs were originals and he talked about how he wrote them and the process of writing. I was intrigued. I had written before and understood a lot of what he was saying.

   I daydreamed a little. I thought it would be fun to be friends with this guy. We could write together. I'd write the words and he'd write the music. It would be fun. As we left he told us to come back again. Yes, I said to myself, I will come back again and I am going to find out more about the musician.

   That's how it started. I thought he would be a good friend. I wasn't looking for anything else. I was one year past a relationship that had lasted a little over four years. It was a relationship that had been riddled by emotional abuse and disrespect. I was not going to do it again. I was done as far as dating was concerned.  

   I never considered falling in love and marrying, but being in a relationship for four years made me wonder if maybe there was someone out there for me. However I needed to face reality.  Marriage and love was something that only happened to other girls. Beautiful girls who were thin with had long flowing hair, charming personalities, lithe, tall, graceful and good with children. I was short, stout, bookish and with a career that I loved. I got along better with animals, especially cats, and was incredibly socially inept. Given the choice between playing with a litter of kittens or a baby, I would go straight to the kittens. No one would ever want to fall in love or marry someone like me and the sooner I remembered that the better off I'd be.

   That's why I thought we'd be good friends and writing partners. There was something I didn't know. The man in the coffeeshop was starting his life over. He was many years past a very bad marriage and some very bad choices. He was following his passion. Deep down inside he was also looking for love and maybe someone to share the journey through life. A deeply spiritual man, he had prayed. Since he had not done a good job at finding someone to love, he asked God to help him find a love, a companion, someone who would look past the mistakes and see him for who he really was and could be.

   What I didn't know was that the first time he saw me in the coffeeshop, a spark went through him. He wondered if this was his sign. The sign that I was the one for him. 

   I came back a few days after I'd seen him play. We exchanged names, phone numbers and email addresses. We started talking and talking and talking

  As you have guessed by now, the guy in the coffee shop is C. We were engaged in June, got married a little over a year later and are still together. I made him two promises. I promised him that while things would not always be happy or easy, he would never be bored. I also promised that he would never be unloved. I've kept both of those promises.

   There were a lot of things that I thought might happen when I went out 18 years ago, finding my husband was not one of them....