My Other Half

Put on your sappy goggles today, my friends, and go for a walk down memory lane with me.  Flashback to the summer after my freshman year of high school.  A friend throws a big party at her house, and I end up across the pool table from the cutest. guy. ever.  He even has his driver’s license already! I am enamored, shamelessly flirting and fake-laughing and making all of my friends talk me up in front of him. Over the next couple of months, he began returning the flirting, and one night changed everything:  he gave me his sweatshirt at the football game when I was cold.  That is the essence of high-school sweethearts, is it not?  I took that sweatshirt home with me, slept in it, and carried it around the next day just to smell his cologne (luckily high-school boys don’t go light on the cologne, so it lingered a while…).  I remember my mom chuckling and asking if I planned to return it.  I did, but it eventually ended up back in my possession, and I still wear it today.

You can guess where this is going, I’m sure.  That sixteen year old boy went on to be my boyfriend through all of high school and most of college (minus five weeks during my freshman year when we briefly broke up…it seems like everyone goes through that little “break” during college!).  And then, one night as we drove back up to Iowa City after Thanksgiving break, he turns to me and says “what would you say if I asked you to marry me?” (mind you, we were IN THE CAR, driving!).  We laughed and joked around for a couple minutes (obviously he knew I would marry him right there in that car), and then I realized this was no joke.  He was proposing, while driving!  He pulled the ring box out of his coat pocket, and I stopped him there–I didn’t want to see the ring until he could get down on one knee!  We finally arrived at our apartment on Melrose and Mormon Trek (the name of the apartments has escaped me for the moment) and there he was, down on one knee, with the perfect ring.  I was one happy girl.  We shared a bottle of sparkling juice and watched our favorite movie (i.e. my favorite movie that he pretended to like), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.  It was perfect.  Simple, but wonderful, and I wouldn’t change that night for the world.  I would have married him the night we met across the pool table, people.  No joke.

On September 8, 2007 (9.8.7) I became Mrs. Sara Meehan.  I’d been writing it all over notebooks and folders since I was sixteen years old, and now it was real.  Surrounded by our closest friends and our wonderful families, we promised to love each other, protect each other, and be faithful to one another until death parts us. I cherish those vows, my friends, and I intend to keep them until my last breath.  Matt is the love of my life, my best friend, and the only person in this world that I want to raise my children with.  We knew what we wanted when it came to a family, and we had (have) a plan for our lives.  Fortunately, we were blessed in the fact that no sooner had we decided that we were ready to start our family, I had a positive pregnancy test in my hand.  We were thrilled!  On August 22, 2008, just 17 days shy of our first wedding anniversary, we welcomed our son into the world.  Our first wedding anniversary consisted of three very excited grandparents who got first dibs at babysitting Sam, and a dinner that I don’t even remember eating because all we (I) wanted to do was get home to my baby.

Our anniversaries have come and gone so quickly, it seems.  Although a LOT has happened since 9.8.7, I still remember that day as if it were happening to me right now.  I remember waking up and smiling to myself as I realized today is the day.  I remember spending the morning with my friends, getting ready and doing my make-up, jittery at the thought of seeing him standing at the end of the aisle.  I remember my dad bringing me a gift from Matt to my dressing room that day, a pen with my new initials SHM engraved on it, with a  little note that said “For my little writer, write down how you feel right now”.  I so badly wish I had grabbed that pen and written as he’d asked, but I had already applied my mascara, and there was no turning back now.  You ladies understand!  But I do remember thinking, I feel like I’m on a roller coaster, almost to the top of the biggest hill, where your stomach drops a tiny bit as you anticipate the thrill/excitement/fear/unknown.  That is how I felt at that moment.  The ride, as it turns out, has been more than I ever could have hoped.

Matt has given me three of the most beautiful children on this planet (I may be a tad biased), the home of my dreams (literally, I pined over this house for nearly a year!), and the opportunity to do what I love (which is write for all of you lovely ICMB readers!).  He works so hard (many times 65+ hours a week) to provide for our sweet little family, and in turn I am beyond blessed with the ability to choose a job (or jobs, at the moment) that I love and yet still spend the majority of my time at home with my children.  I am one lucky girl, and believe me, I don’t take it for granted.

This weekend marks the 6th anniversary of the day I married my best friend.  We don’t have any plans (or at least not that I know of), and to be honest I’m completely fine with that.  Just to be with him, sitting on the couch watching our Netflix and ignoring the dishes in the sink.  Just to sit there and remember how we ended up here.  I think about our wedding day of course, but I also think about him driving up to see me in the middle of the night at my dorm (Mayflower) just because I was lonely.  I think about him driving me to my after school job in high school, and how we would always go through McDonalds drive thru and get chicken sandwiches.  I think about sitting next to him in Chemistry class and attempting to pay attention to the teacher.  I think about missing him so much for the six months that I lived in Spain during college.  I’ve often gone back and re-read my journals from those years, reading my teenage-handwriting telling the pages that she would someday marry Matt Meehan and they would have lots of beautiful children and live in a beautiful house and have their own happily ever after.

(Don’t worry, the sappiness is ending soon…)  My definition of “happily ever after” has changed drastically since the time I wrote those journals, ladies.  My happily ever after is much simpler now, much messier.  My happily ever after is taking turns walking across the hall to get the crying baby in the middle of the night, or sweeping the floor after every meal, or watching Veggie Tales with the boys for the six hundred and twenty seventh time.  My happily ever after is interrupted snuggles, tired kisses, and smiles across the table covered in spaghetti and juice.  But one thing hasn’t changed, and that’s who I’m sharing it with.

All of these stories you read about me on this blog, all of these pictures you see of my children on our Instagram page, all of the funny statuses and late-night questions on the Facebook page are possible because I have a husband who loves me, who loves my passion for writing and for helping people, and who lives to see me fulfill my dreams.

Happy Anniversary Matt.

Love,

Nugget