You've Got Mail

Five years ago tomorrow, I received an email.  An email that you could call life changing.  I was sitting in a study carrell on the second floor of the law library, procrastinating instead of reading my Election Law assignment.  This was not an uncommon practice for me.  I checked my email and my Myspace account.  I think this part of the story probably dates me, as Myspace is Facebook's less hip, less cool, less successful cousin.  Anyway, sitting in my Myspace inbox was a message - a short, one sentence email.  An email from a boy I went to college with - a boy I didn't really know, but had maybe spoken to a couple of times.  A boy I hadn't seen in about eight years.  A cute boy, I might add.  A boy who would become my husband.

The early days. 

The email he sent was simple -  basically a "hey, I remember you" type of thing.  But something made me respond to it - to continue a conversation.  And that email was the start of what could pretty accurately be described as a whirlwind courtship.  The cautious, reserved, Type A planner in me completely lost my mind, and for the first (and perhaps only) time in my life, I just let go of my normal reservations and went with it, enjoying the ride.  One email a day led to six emails a day, which led to phone calls, which quickly became weekend trips to see each other (we lived five hours apart at the time).  And remarkably, not only did we not question how fast our relationship was progressing to something "serious," but neither did those close to us.

I'll never forget my mother's response to a phone call I made to her on my drive home from a weekend with David about a month, maybe 5 weeks, after that first email.  I told her that I thought I had found "the one."  Her response was not, "Are you crazy?  You barely know him."  My level-headed, responsible, practical mother's response to my proclamation was, instead, "Sarah, I know."

This is my all-time favorite picture of us.

About five months after that first email, David and I were engaged.  About nine months after that first email, he had picked up his entire life and moved to Kentucky so we would no longer be in a long distance relationship.  And about 13 months after that first email, we were married.  That email started my life down a path that I could not have anticipated.  It was the most important, most impacting, most wonderful email I have ever received.

Before David and I reconnected with each other through the wonders of modern technology, I never understood what people meant when they said you "just know" when something is right.  I have always been a little bit of a sappy romantic, but I'm not sure I really believed that the whole love at first sight thing (or, in our case, love at first sight after almost a decade) would happen to me.  But, you know what?  It totally did.

For years I had watched my friends meet the right guy, and I had celebrated the love stories of others while waiting for one of my own to begin.  I had prayed and waited and watched and worried.  I had been anxious and discouraged, trying to figure out the wheres and hows of meeting the right person.  Never in a million years did I imagine my happy ending would start with a single-sentence email.  An email from a guy I barely knew, that was sitting in my Myspace inbox on that morning five years ago.  Little did I know when I procrastinated with my studies that day that my life was about to change dramatically for the better - the so very much better.

And now, here I sit, with our daughter on my lap, remembering that morning and reflecting on the relationship that started that day.  And I am thankful.  And I am happy.  And I am oh so glad I decided to write that cute boy back.  Because I can't imagine what would have happened to me if I hadn't.