Where to Start...

The beginning I suppose?

My fiance (Zach) and I have been dating for almost four years. We first met many moons ago in the living room of a somewhat mutual friend. I had just moved to Chicagoland and had just (and I mean JUST!) gotten out of a terrible relationship. Zach had relatively recently gotten out of a relationship himself and wasn't exactly looking to get into another one.

I was coming downtown with a new friend of mine, we'll call her J, to visit one of her friends, who we'll call A, and go out to a bar. Zach, a friend (and I later learned ex) of A was downtown as well and met up with us at A's house before we went out. I remember him walking in and thinking he was awfully cute, but in all the confusion I actually thought he was A's brother, who I already knew was in a serious relationship. Damn. We all ended up over at John Barleycorns where we met up with some addition guy friends of A and I had far to much to drink. Up until this lovely evening, I hadn't really done shots, (I know, I'm pathetic) and Zach somehow convinced me to do so. I recall him reaching over the table, putting his hand on mine, and literally saying, "It will be ok, I'll take care of you." Which in hindsight is totally cheesy, but whatever. Shots and a number of drinks later and we were all upstairs dancing the night away. My friend J and I kept switching between Zach and one of the other guys to dance with, both clearly preferring Zach over our other companion. At one point, J, a much more forward type of girl, decided to lay one on Zach. I saw the whole thing go down as I left the bathroom, sucker in hand from the lovely bathroom attendant, and I remember thinking, "Damn. I thought that boy was sort of in to me." and then just being happy I had the sucker. Ah... the complex thoughts of a drunk girl.

The evening ended with all of us at A's place, J and A in the bedroom and Zach and I on separate couches in the living room. Much late night drunk talking commenced and I recall some hand holding might have occurred. And yes, I actually mean hand holding, that isn't some code for something more exciting.

The next morning we exchanged numbers, and he called while I was still driving home. We went on our first date that night, out boating on the Fox River and trying to find somewhere to eat. Basically, since that night, we've been inseperable. Our respective friendships with J and A did eventually suffer, but I think somewhere, we both knew that we'd found the right one for us.

Four years later we've really been through a lot, but we both know we've really found our partner in life. I'll save the proposal for a later post!