Happy Birthday

Tomorrow is Sheryl's birthday. I won't tell you which one, but she can if she wants to. I think it's typical on blogs for the significant other to devote the blog to the person having a birthday. Now, I love my wife a lot, so I warn you ahead of time, this isn't going to be some gruff manly exposition.

Sheryl and I dated for two weeks our sophomore years at Lipscomb. In fact, we started dating on her birthday of her sophomore year. I know that because there was a Star Wars marathon at one of the dorms (yes, we hooked up at a Star Wars marathon). I walked her back to her dorm and kissed her and we started dating.

Until she dumped me two weeks later.

She said then that she wasn't ready for me. She hasn't changed her story much in the 14 years since then, except to say that the time I wore a tye-dye shirt and torn jeans to meet her mom pretty much sealed the deal at that point.

We stayed acquaintances over the next two years, until the day that I had finished student teaching and she was finishing an exam and we literally ran into each other in the basement of the Burton building at Lipscomb. We said hi and asked how each other were. I asked if she had some time and wanted to get something to drink at the student center, so we did. We ended up talking for an hour or so (I still have the cup btw) and I got a call later that night from a girl I went to high school with who was Sheryl's roommate inviting me to a graduation picnic the next day. I found out only last year that that was Sheryl's doing. And we hooked up there.

Since that was the end of the school year and I was graduating and didn't know where I was going to end up and Sheryl had one more year of school left, we ended it with the idea that we really liked each other and wanted to see how things would play out. She was going to be down about every three weeks that summer for weddings and such so we'd see each other then and one weekend in July, I'd drive up to Indiana to see her.

Where she dumped me.

I'm still not sure where that one came from. And I was even more confused the next weekend when she was down and she hugged me and acted like nothing had happened.

Well, that August she moved back down and I had gotten a job teaching in Metro Nashville and that was it. We were married in June of 1996 and haven't looked back since.

Sheryl is one of those totally complimentary people that I hate to use the Jerry Maguire cliche about how she "completes me," but she really does. We've done amazing things in our 12 years together: been to London twice, been to New York, bought a house, had a beautiful daughter. I've had five jobs, lost two of them, and we've been so close to having no money that one summer we literally had 5 dollars in our account before our school money came through.

Sheryl is a beautiful woman that helps me in my walk with God everyday. She's organized, lovely, funny, patient, and watches science fiction with me. What else could I ask for from a woman?

So, happy birthday a day early, baby. I love you with every fiber of my being and can't wait for the next years of our lives together.