| It was funny how once I'd prayed about it, I felt like my
eyes had suddenly flown open and it was obvious that Chris was looking more and
more like THE ONE. Okay, so I'd only known him for a day! We agreed to go see a movie
that night. The bad news was that the only film showing in town was an
art flick called "Anna Takes a Lover" -- not exactly perfect first date fare. The good
news was that my dad had brought along a VCR, and so we arranged that Chris would
pick me up, take me back to the condo that he was sharing with his parents, and we would
rent a movie to watch there.
I don't even remember the movie. I do remember talking to someone who was fascinating, and was fascinated by me! We shared a love of the French language and of academics, and all kinds of other things. I was smitten by the end of the night. When Chris brought me back to the hotel, my dad invited him in...and they ended up talking for an hour about all sorts of things. When I came back from walking Chris down to his car, my dad's exact quote was, "He's a computer geek. You can marry him." Marriage wasn't even close to my mind. I was seventeen, remember, and still in my senior year of high school. I had only recently decided that going to college did not seem to be something I wanted to do, which had come as a surprise to me. I was looking for a little romance and friendship, yes. But marriage?? The last couple of days of the Feast flew by. I went to dinner with his parents, where I learned an important dating rule: never order barbecued chicken when you're meeting anyone important. You'll look like an idiot. Still, they didn't forbid himn from seeing me again! On the last day of the Feast, he joined my parents for a parking lot picnic, and I was amazed at how easily he got along with them. That afternoon, as we walked back to the convention center, I felt like I needed something, some sort of commitment, to take home with me. So I asked, "When I get back home, can I call you my boyfriend?" Chris shrugged. "Can I call you my girlfriend?" I nodded, and with that unromantic exchange, we were, apparently, dating. Whatever that would mean once I got home. I didn't even get to say goodbye to Chris that night, as my dad was in a hurry to get home. I cried for hours, even when my mom assured me that it was just a passing fancy. I knew that it felt different, but I wasn't sure if it had been different for him. What if he never wrote? What if he hadn't really been serious? I needn't have worried. He wrote two days later...and in that first letter, he confessed that he loved me and he asked me to come see him and his family over Christmas break. I was completely beside myself when my parents said I could go...only a few weeks later, I had tickets in hand. Chris called once or twice a week, and we wrote long letters back and forth. We talked about parenting and finances and religion...we talked about everything. And December snuck closer and closer...
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