An Official Couple

...continued from previous two posts.

OC had movie nights at the local dollar theatre when OC students could get in to see movies for free. These were popular date nights among us poor folks. And this night, Jeff and I took advantage of the free date once again. We saw two movies that night. One of those movies was Shanghai Knights. Crazy movie, but great time! During the movie, all I could think about was this guy sitting next to me. Oh, we both went through those jittery feelings, "what do I do with my hand?" , "will she freak out if I put my arm around her?" , "Oh, his hand's in the popcorn!" It was so fun. I was going crazy! Nothing happened. I think we were both too afraid. When we left the movie, a couple of our friends were in the lobby and so we decided to stay for another movie with them. Same thing for another 90 minutes! Boy, I'll tell you what, by the end of that night, I was exhausted! (well, my emotions were)

That night after Jeff dropped me off at the dorm, I had those conversations with my gal-friends. I came to the conclusion that this was it. I had to talk to him. I had to know what was going on and where we were! So, I called him. My heart was pounding. I'm pretty sure my hands were sweatty and I wanted to hang up. But I didn't. The conversation was pretty short. He answered, and we talked about how much fun we both had. Then I got to the point of why I called. "Jeff, what is this? Where are we? What are we?" What he said next put a huge smile on my face and gave me that giggly feeling that girls get. I never thought I'd hear a guy say this to me! "Um, Sendy, I want you bad."

That was our beginning! We were an official couple! I couldn't believe it! I still can't believe that he chose me to be his forever girl. Our friends all thought it was about time that we called ourselves a couple. I think that the whole time, they all called us one anyway.

This was either at the end of February or beginning of March. The weeks went by and we spent so much time together. We spent hours talking about our future, what each of us wanted in our future. What we envisioned our family life looking like, our religious views, our political views, our likes and dislikes, how many kids we wanted, where we wanted to live, etc. By Spring Break, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this man. He drove me to Amarillo to meet up with my dad at the Big Texan (you know that place, with the "free" 72 oz. steak!). We ate lunch there with him and had a great time. I still remember looking at the menu with him and figuring out what we wanted to share, the look in his face. My dad watched us. He knew. We didn't say anything, goodness, we had just started dating!

Later, my mom told me that when we got home that evening, my dad told her that they needed to get ready for another wedding. Ha! My parents even knew this was the man with whom I would spend the rest of my life!

Spring Break was great. I don't remember a lot about what I did while there, probably just hung out at home and found some friends to do something with occasionally. What I do remember, is the conversations I had with my mom. I was talking about wedding stuff and future things in my life. Then, my mom said, this wedding better not be before the end of the year! We laughed. I told her that we weren't even engaged, we had just got together, but that I loved him. I did say that I wasnt' sure if he would even think about proposing anytime soon anyway.

After break, school went so fast. Jeff and I spent a lot of time together solidifying our future dreams together. That was it, together, our plans were melding together. We went on bike rides, tons of walks, and several out-of-town drives. One evening, we were coming out of the student center, it was late and dark. He clasped my hand and held it close to him on his arm. As we walked toward the dorms, he told me he felt like we were an old couple, that he loved thinking about us being old together. I think that was when we decided to spend the rest of our lives loving each other.

That week, we went to the malls and looked at rings. But we had to be strategic. Nobody knew!