Oh the difference a year makes

One year ago today, my boys were with their dad, and I was a nervous wreck.  

You see, I knew that at 7 p.m. I would be going on a first date.  A practice date is what my friends and I were calling it.  And while I had absolutely no intention of ever seeing this guy again after this date - because men had turned into selfish, lying, manipulative pigs, and I was certain this guy would be the same - it was a first date nonetheless.  My first date with anyone in months and my first date with anyone but Michael in years.

I spent the day shopping so as to distract myself from the stupid thing I had planned that evening.  I bought my kids Christmas presents and I bought myself a pair of red shoes - because they were half off, and a girl needs to look good even on a practice date.

When it came time to get ready, I grabbed a beer out of my refrigerator and held onto it for dear life.

While I applied my make up and flat ironed my hair and put on my new red shoes, I drank my beer to try to calm my nerves.

On the drive to the restaurant, I text my best friend a picture of the guy with all of the personal information I had about him and the name and address of the restaurant - just in case he tried to kidnap and murder me. 

She informed me, "he looks like a thug" (lots of tattoos/people are judgey/we've covered this) just to set my mind at ease.  I almost turned around and went home.

But I like tattoos, and we were meeting in public, and it wasn't like I was planning to marry the guy.  Just have dinner.  If he was awful, I had my car and could just leave.

My plan was to have this date, use it to assess how horribly awful it was going to be to date as a 30 year old single mom, and then ignore this dude (and all other dudes) for the rest of eternity.  Because getting involved with people gets you hurt.  And it hurts your kids.  And I had had quite enough.  Odds were he wasn't going to try to contact me again anyway because - as I have already mentioned - men were not exactly held in my highest regard at that point in time, and I was quite certain he would be a complete and total DB.

Imagine my surprise when this man turned out to be funny and charming and engaging and nice and interesting and made me like him too much to ignore his text messages the next day.  Yes, he text me the next day.  And the day after that.  And the one after that.  And he called and talked to me for hours every night after my kids were asleep - like we were 14.  So on and so forth.

Ok, well, it wouldn't hurt to date him casually, I guess.

When he asked me to accompany him to his company Christmas party, I decided to go and wound up having fun.  He used the word "girlfriend" to introduce me to his co-workers, and I rather liked the sound of it.  

Casually went out the window.  I had a boyfriend.

I introduced him to my friends.  And then I introduced him to my parents.  And THEN I introduced him to my kids and monitored his every move expecting him to screw it all up.  But he didn't.  He handled himself perfectly.

And now here we are.  One year later. 

This man who was just supposed to be a practice date has turned into a part of my family.  He helps me raise my kids.  He fixes my car when it's broken.  He puts together swing sets and paints pink rooms.  He washes dishes and does laundry and cooks meals.  We celebrate holidays and birthdays together.  We spend lazy Sundays together napping on the couch.  We have a house together.  We are having a daughter together.  We have a life together.

If you had asked either of us on December 4, 2012 where we saw ourselves in a year, I guarantee neither one of us saw ourselves here.  We just got lucky that way.

Happy first anniversary to the absolute best man I have ever known.  I love you, and I thank my lucky stars that you accidentally won my heart and that I accidentally won yours.