My man

Happy birthday baby.
It's been almost two years since I first met West. Embarrassingly enough we met online. Which is funny in it's own sense, since West and I will be the first to bash online dating. Though... we didn't chat or interact online as such is the fashion with online dating. It was a local group, that has a website for all of it's members and did activities. You could send an email asking for an "introduction" to another member and if it was accepted, the system would automatically swap your phone numbers and emails. I hadn't checked my account for MONTHS because I was dating some one. After that some one and I broke up, I got on to my account and started cleaning out all the emails. There wasn't anyone I was even remotely interested in dating on there and I was numbly hitting delete as I went through them all. Until I got to the end of my list, which was the oldest email as I had started with the most recent and worked my way back. There was a two month old introduction request and the man was gorgeous. I was frantically accepting while at the same time hoping against hope that he wasn't dating someone by this time (he had been, but it had just ended). I called him that night, leaving a message, and he texted me the next day. We set up a date for Saturday, dinner and a few rounds of pool. It was a Wednesday I think. On Thursday while at work, around 4:00, I received a text from him claiming he had movie tickets for that night but his friend bailed on him. Would I like to go? Would I! My dad became my "emergency" last minute sitter, I frantically sprayed body spray in my hair to get rid of the tire smell (there was no time for a shower) and I nervously/excitedly drove to the Gateway to meet him. My brother Nick was telling me via phone call that he was giving me a line with this excuse to meet... I was way OK with that. West now admits that he did make it all up, but he just didn't want to wait until Saturday to meet. He'd already waited two months for me to answer the email as it was LOL. I wasn't disappointed in him. I was insanely attracted to him. And the fact that he bought tickets there at the theater was a dead give a way that his story was made up :). Most of you know of the break up, after break up, after break up through our first year of dating. The thing about that is it was never harsh or rude or nasty. It was simply us, mostly him, trying to figure out what we wanted. And being unsure of what we were getting into. After a year, we finally told each other that we loved each other and the break ups where done.
Being with West is amazing. Did you know it's possible to be in a relationship with out losing your individual identity? I didn't know that until West. He let's me be me. He laughs at me (and let's face it, it's warranted), but if he didn't it wouldn't work. The other night I exclaimed "it's amazing I get done as much as I do with how retarded I am!" West agreed but then allowed that it was part of my beauty.
West makes me LAUGH. We're most often on the same page in life, what's going through one's head is coming out the other's mouth.
Yesterday our phones weren't working somewhere, and we weren't getting each others texts, and being sent straight to voicemail when making calls. I was lying in bed after not hearing from him all evening (highly unusual for us) and realizing that when this would happen with my ex it left me feeling anxious, nervous, and stressed. But with West, I was completely comfortable, just highly curious as to what was keeping him from the phone. Finally he called my house phone and we figured out what was going, but the lesson learned for me is that it just feels so good to be with him. He didn't say or do anything in the relationship or dating process until he felt it. Which made for a very frustrating first year, and a marvelous boyfriend-bragging second year. He's morphed in to exactly the kind of man you always hope to find... he makes me laugh, he says all the right things, and he surprises me with little stuff. He even helps cook and do the dishes ha ha. I trust him because I know he wasn't trying to "win", and he wasn't in it for the "catch".
Disneyland, the Bahamas, Wicked, Lake Powell, supporting me in going back to school, Goblin Valley... and we're not done with reaching for dreams!
My girls adore him. And he's so good with them. We've both had our struggles with first marriages resulting in divorce and dealing with ex's, but it's made us really appreciate what we have together.

I never believed in soul mates. But West is the kind of guy (for me) that makes me see how people can believe in them. How can someone be so good for you (even on the "off" days)?

Happy birthday West! I'll be forever grateful to have you in my life, and whether it's channel surfing on the couch to vacations to dressing up and hitting the town, every minute with you is exactly where I want to be.