The Beginning of Us

Our story. It's fairly long. I think I'm going to save the details for a few blog entries. But the basics are:

We met in October 2007, at a weekly get-together Mike had originally created, but it was just a friendship since I was dating someone else. Ironically enough, it was only because of my ex that I was ever invited to join the group every week.

Mike disappeared from the group again in late 2009. He went to the dinners on and off, but I always remember that I had a blast laughing with him.

I broke up with the someone else in March 2009, after a long battle and an amazing talk with Mike over Facebook.

June 2009, Mike came back to Michigan for a visit, and I had completely forgotten about it until the day he contacted me, wondering what I was doing. I was getting ready to leave for a friend's wedding, completely annoying that the friend I was supposed to go with wasn't answering his phone. (Side story: the friend, Milton, had played a Tetris marathon all night and had passed out from lack of sleep, and slept through his phone ringing. I have strange friends.) Mike offered to go with, and we spent ten hours hanging out that night, including Mike introducing me to his best friend. The next night, we hung out again, ending up at the beach where we kissed for the first time. Two days later, he introduced me to his stepfather as his girlfriend, even before he told ME about it.

By late June, we decided that I was going to be moving to Oklahoma with him after his training, first Basic training then AIT, which would be completed sometime in February or March.

Mid July he left for Basic. I kept busy by working two jobs and writing two or three letters at a time, and dealing with the things that the ex threw my way.

Late September, Mike's stepdad and I flew to Georgia to see him graduate. All of my fears that we had changed, we wouldn't feel so strongly, etc were completely unfounded. It was like we were never apart.

A little over a week later, early October, I received a text from Mike. I hadn't heard from him much that week, and not at all that day, but I wasn't concerned. I finished setting up my laptop (I met a group of friend every Saturday night to hang, play games, and I would work on my photo editing), and then checked my phone. To my surprise (understatement), I read: 'So, you wanna go get married over Christmas?' I thought it was a joke, so after I got my very excited female friends to stop bouncing up and down, I hauled them outside to call Mike and call his bluff. Our conversation: Me: You know, if you are joking, it's not funny. Mike: Just answer the question. Me: (thinking that I would be calling his bluff) Fine. Yes. I'll marry you. Mike: Okay. Set it up. At this point, I stopped talking, and I'm pretty sure I was in shock. Cassie, one of the best friends ever, took the phone and said, 'Mike? It's Cassie. Auna's in shock right now. But it's a good shock.'

December 19th, 2009, we were married. 6 months to the day that Mike announced I was his girlfriend. Quick? Maybe. Not for us. We just knew that this was it. This was us.

Other things have happened. I moved to Oklahoma, survived two tornadoes in the town I live in, and an earthquake last year, not to mention the loneliness that I'm still getting used to. Mike has been gone for training and now deployment, and one day when I was bored, I sat down and calculated just how long we have physically spent together. In almost two years of marriage, we have lived together about 6 months of that time. That's also including the few weekends that I drove to see him in training. I once told him, 'Being married to you is like being single, without the perks'. But you know what? We wouldn't have it any other way.