It started with Middle School Girls Basketball. True Story.
It was hard to decide where to start with this story; I really have to go back to my high school and early college days, when my sisters were in middle school and playing with my dads traveling basketball team -The Starz (I have to find a picture soon to post b/c they will both die but they were so little and cute!). This basketball team did a lot of playing at the Boys & Girls club, and my dad & family did some volunteering there as well. Unknown to me my future husband was working and interning with the Boy's and Girl's club through college and friends with our family.
Now, I did not have as much contact with Barry as my family did, but I remember him always being around the Boy's & Girls club. He recalls always seeing our family, and when I say family I am including grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins (some that played on the team as well! Lauren and Jess!)and everyone else watching games. When I say I come from the big-fat Greek Weddings of Catholic families I honestly mean it! (that is also for another post ;) I adore my huge ridiculous family). Barry also called at times to check on my dad throughout the time he was suffering from kidney failure prior to his transplant in May of 2003. My dad even had Mary Beth (my sister) volunteering @ the B&G's club running clock, Barry tried to pay her - to which my dad promptly responded that she was doing it as as a favor to and not to pay her, so Barry asked to take her to McDonald's as payment for working the tournament. If you know my family at all you know that, 1. My dad trusts very few with his girls and 2. At that age the quickest way to Bethie's heart was with McDonald's. Barry and Beth have a friendship today that rivals any other ;). So from the start Barry knew the importance of my family and had already begun to love each of them before even starting to love me.
Fast-forward about 6-7 years until after college, I had moved back to Missouri from Oklahoma for a job with a pharmaceutical company after graduation. Now this next bit I hate to admit but it involves myspace. I know. I die, and not in a good way. Barry saw a picture of a very grown-up set of the 3 Bourne girls through of post of a friend of a friend on myspace, while he was on the end of his first deployment in Iraq. One day I received a much surprised comment on this picture saying "Are these the famous Bourne Girls!?". He thought it looked like us but couldn't be sure with as grown up as the girls were so many years after the Boys & Girls club years.
After this began a string of emails and eventually texts when he cam home from Iraq, and finally phone calls about 6 months after that initial picture.
Our relationship began as a friendship, thinking back now its strange that we started by talking about our individual relationships and breakups with other people and working through so many changes in our lives. At this point the pharmaceutical company had just downsized and I found myself on the job search again 2 years after graduation, Barry just back from his first deployment from Iraq and making decisions on what to do next.
What I did next would change both our lives forever and. I was ready to make a change, to move away from home and really spread my wings, really for the first time. So I made the decision to move to Texas for a job and live with a friend whose husband was deploying for the 2nd time- everything seemed to be aligning. Funny thing is, at this point I hadn't even realized that Killeen and Fort Hood Texas were the same place (I knew nothing of the Army then)! As soon as I announced my decision to move to Texas to Barry and told him and I bet we'd be living close enough to get together sometime, he informed me that I was in fact moving to exactly where he was living. Killeen is the military town surround Fort Hood , I was obviously militarily inept.
After moving to Texas, Barry and I started to spend more and more time together and very quickly he became my best friend. I wish I could say a romance budded immediately but I fought it every step of the way. I knew I wanted to kiss him early on, I also knew if I did kiss him it would change everything and I couldn't risk losing my best friend at that point. I also knew he was re-deploying soon, and not only was I petrified at giving up my best friend for an entire year, I also knew we had to be totally in to make it through a deployment to make it as a couple.
But Barry, in his very patient way continued to wait and work for that first kiss because he was certain of what he wanted. We talked everyday, he showed me around and we continued to spend a lot of time together. He was even grilling steaks for my roommate and I - every Sunday we would sit and have dinner like a family. He was working so hard for that first kiss he was even mowing my roommates lawn every other week. This went on for quite some time, a couple months actually, which he will never let me forget.
I knew once I gave in and kissed him nothing would be the same.
The moment did not disappoint. I can only describe it as fire works follow by weak knees. You know the scene in Princess Diaries (yes Princess Diaries, stick with me) where she has her first kiss and she had no 'foot pop' and she's so disappointed? Then she kisses the right boy and she gets it? I got my 'foot pop' ;)
It was bigger than me and I knew from that very moment, the moment of our first kiss that he was the last man I would ever kiss.
Our very first ever trip together to San Antonio
Love him!
I told him from the beginning I was a lot of work and required a lot of attention, but that I was more than worth it. I am so glad he continued to wait and work to earn my trust, he is such a good man and is going to make the most amazing husband and father.
I know it sounds like a cliche to say it but he is truly my very best friend and I cannot wait to marry him in 5 short months.
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