Josh graduated high school that same year and left me behind. Well, he still lived at home in the same house, I just wasn’t able to follow him around school all day. Although, it was still pretty early in our relationship, it was pretty clear from the beginning that we weren’t planning on going anywhere. Thankfully, we didn’t have one of those relationships that fell apart and came back together over and over — we never broke up and I don’t remember ever thinking that it wouldn’t work out. We talk now about how rare that kind of relationship is and how different life could have been for us — we are so thankful that it wasn’t. It is amazing to look back on seventeen years and see God’s hand in our relationship from the very beginning. The decisions we made that helped keep us on the same track. The goals we had that were so perfectly aligned.
When thinking about where to go to college that next year, I tried really hard to steer clear of the University where Josh was attending classes. Not only because I wasn’t interested in a public university at the time, but because I did not want to be the girl who followed her high school sweetheart off to college. I would have followed him anywhere, but I wasn’t looking forward to the stigma of being that girl. It’s just another one of those things that God worked out independent of our own desires, because despite my very best efforts, I wound up making a last minute college change that landed me in the very last place I intended to go.
On our way home from Panama City Beach, June 1997
One of my favorite college stories involving Josh, involved another of my best friends at the time. Joel was a printmaking student, too. We had absolutely nothing in common except our studio time, but he (and two other girls in my print classes) quickly became my very favorite people. Let’s just say that Joel and I had the very same taste in men. He often tried to get me to loan him my clothes because they would look so much better on him and he begged to be a bridesmaid in my wedding at our very baptist church. I had studio time scheduled one afternoon and when I got there, Joel was sitting on a stool with a crazy big grin on his face. He started in on this story about how he was hanging around outside the art annex and this boy rounded the corner. When they made eye contact, the very cute boy grinned at him. Obviously, Joel was enjoying this very much until the boy got close enough to speak and he realized it was Josh. So much for the cute boy, right?
Arches National Park, June 1999
The summer after my freshman year of college, we took a trip out west with the youth and college choir from my church. It was one of the best trips of my childhood and I’m so glad that it was something we did together. We saw all kinds of amazing sights and spent a pretty grueling sixteen hours hiking from the rim of the Grand Canyon, down to the river, and then back out again. I know we look gorgeous in those photographs, but the second one was taken about a mile from the top and after fifteen plus miles of switchbacks and temperatures of 110* (and higher), we no longer cared what we looked like! I had never been so glad to see a friend handing me pretzels and gatorade IN MY LIFE. Bless that sweet boy’s heart, because he carried my pack for the last 6 or 7 miles of our hike — it was either that or send a helicopter in after me!
Hiking into the Grand Canyon, June 1999
Almost to the rim again, almost sixteen hours later
The fact that we were getting married, had become a given at some point, and that next summer we spent a lot of time talking about the future and our timetable. I had always assumed we would wait and get married after grad school, which I had planned on attending immediately after college graduation. One day out of the blue, Josh told me he didn’t want to wait anymore. We decided I would take a year off from school and we would marry the summer after I graduated college. He would still have a year of undergrad left (thanks to being completely undecided on his future) and we could only afford one tuition payment at a time. That next summer, we took another amazing trip. We headed north towards Niagara Falls, armed with copious amounts of bridal magazines.
The Canadian side of Niagara Falls, June 2000
Comerica Park, June 2000
Niagara Falls, June 2000
I remember having some friends that thought it was weird we decided to get married. Maybe it felt different after being together for so long, but it was a very natural progression. I knew I would have a ring one day, I just wasn’t in a hurry. He was the thing I wanted, not a diamond. We even joked that I bought my wedding dress before he’d even shopped for a ring… or so I thought.
This post is part three of a multi-part series I’ll be sharing over the next several weeks. Click the following links to read more: the very beginning | the first date | the prank call
