Upcoming Nuptuals

Me and Tina met….in highschool.  No, I’m not some freak picking up highschool girls, we met when we were both students at Poplar Bluff High School back in 1988.  We knew each other through mutual friends, and I thought she was a living doll.  Problem was, Tina was a good girl, even back then….and I was, well, I was all about a good time and nothing more.  We actually ended up on a “date” one night, I was a little to fast for her so that was the end of that…for awhile at least.

We graduated, and moved on with our lives.  I moved to North Carolina in 1992 through a military move.  Unknown to me, Tina moved to NC as well in 1997. And so we were living about and hour part and didn’t even know it, until May of 2007.

My 20 year high school reunion was coming up, so I signed up with classmates.com in order to find info on the reunion and connect with folks from my school days.  While surfing the site, I ran across Tina’s profile..and low and behold, saw that she was right up the road in Raleigh!  I shot her a message through classmates, wondering if she remembered me and saying something corny about how cool it was we ended up in the same area so far from our hometown.  I hit send and wondered if she would respond or not.

Well, she did that day.  She had come home with her friend Becky (Tina’s best friend from High School who also lived in Raleigh), checked her email and saw that she had a message on Classmates from “Danny Ellis”.  She logged onto the site and and replied back that she did remember me, and that she was excited to hear from me and looking forward to reconnecting.  That was May 7th.  The same day I had a fire gutted my home.  Since I was temporarily homeless…thus “internet-less”, I had no idea she had responed.  All the while she’s wonder why I didn’t write back, especially after she paid 20 bucks for a “Gold Membership” with classmates just to read the email I had sent.  I moved into a rental house a couple weeks later, set up internet access and found that she had replied.  I explained about the fire, and she found that a suitable excuse for my lack of a prompt response.

We started catching up via email, and I discovered that she was also single.  But our emails, and later phone conversations remained completly plutonic as I was dating someone and thought there was no way a smokin hot lady as squared away as she was would see me as anything but a friend anyway.  We continued to talk occasionally as friends, and through our conversations I continued to be amazed.  Someone who shared my views (well, MOST of them anyway) on so many issues!  family, politics, values, etc.

During the next few months, I felt an attraction to her, but thought her interest in me was just a friend.  Once again, unbeknown to me (you’ll see this a theme here) she was interested in me as well, but never let on because I was still dating someone else…I told you she was a good girl.  Even though we talked occasionally about the relationship I was in, and how it just didn’t feel right, she never let on that the right girl was right there waiting.  The only “hint” she gave was in an email.  You know those fluffy feel good emails that girls send to everyone on their address list? Of those.  It was cute story of a little girl and set of dime store pearls.  The moral of the story was that often in life we never receive the “real pearls” that God has waiting for us because we refuse to let go of the “fake pearls” we’ve become comfortable with.  It would have been obvious to anyone with half a clue what point she was trying to make, but as usual, I was only working on about 1/32 of a clue, so I didn’t get it.

More time passed, while she patiently waited to see what I was going to do.  Finally in September of 07, my relationship I was in ended.  When I told Tina that I was single again (still no clue she was diggin’ me) we decided to meet up for dinner, look at yearbooks…you know, typical old friend reconnection stuff.  I had moved back into my house after the rebuilt, and she had just bought a new car, so we decided she would drive down to little old Harnett County.

When she arrived and stepped out of the car, I was in awe of her beauty.  I decided right then that even though I was probably facing and embarrassing rebuff, I was going to “make my move”….as soon as I found the courage.  We enjoyed a nice dinner at Los Comales, and then went back to my house to go through old year books.  We then decided to watch a movie.  Sometime during the movie I found that courage I had been looking for and asked her if I could hold her hand.   Much to my suprise she said yes.  The following weekend was our first “official” date, and we’ve been hooked on each other every since.

Early in 2008 I recieved orders to Tinker AFB, OK.  While this was a huge blessing as it meant I would be close to my kids, it also meant I’d be 1500 miles from Tina.  We decided to do the long distance thing, and if it was truely meant to be, the distance wouldn’t matter.  Well, the distance didn’t matter.  We continued to grow closer and closer and ??? of 2008 I knew that I wanted to be with her forever.  Once again I went searching for some courage, found it and proposed.  She said yes!

June 20th, 2009 we’ll be married at Open Door Church in Raleigh, NC.  Then she’ll be moving to Oklahoma with me, and we’ll begin the rest of our lives together!