Part One: How I met the man I'm going to marry

In January of 2008 I finally got the nerve to break up with my boyfriend of over two years because it was a toxic relationship.  He was an alcoholic, we had alcoholic friends and I realized that I wanted no part of that in my life anymore.  It had been a long time coming since I hadn't been happy in my relationship for awhile but a lot of factors played into the timing for when I was finally able to cut the strings.  In my mind I had been ready to be single for awhile and ready to seriously focus on myself.  I had been in that relationship for long enough and had been in a six year relationship before that one so it was time for me.
I went on  a few dates, met some wonderful people early that year and I worked on my girl-friend relationships.  I lost quite a few friends during that time as well because of ending my relationship which I take as a sign that they left my life for a reason and weren't meant to be with me forever.  I was going on and planning trips with friends, planning to move out of the apartment I shared with my roommate soon and spending more time with my family.  Things were going pretty well.

the photo that eventually changed my life

At the beginning of March that year I was looking at a girl friend of mine, friends on myspace (yes I was still on myspace in 2008) when I saw a guy who's profile photo was of four labs and a lil' baby.  His profile was private, like mine, so that's all I could see at the time besides his age and that he lived in Dallas.  I have always loved chocolate labs and at the time I was thinking that I needed to find one to adopt so something inside of me decided to "message" this stranger and ask if all the dogs were his (I was initially looking to see if he knew a breeder or possibly puppies but all I managed to ask was if the dogs were his . . . special I know).  I figured since he was a friend of a friend then it wasn't so strange.  I messaged him and kinda forgot all about it.

Spring break came around and I went to San Antonio with Leslie for a girls trip.  On March 17th I remember checking my email & myspace on Leslie's computer during our downtime at the hotel and I had a message from Allen.  He wrote me back saying that three of the dogs were his sister's and one of them was his parents and then said "talk to ya later."  I never responded to ask any other questions because I had a feeling it was silly and then I didn't check the computer for a few days.  On March 24th I got another message from him saying that he was cleaning out his inbox, wanted to say hello and liked the new photo I had up.  I had my settings on super private so the only photo he could see was my profile photo which I was constantly changing.  I'm not entirely certain what I wrote back but I'm sure must have since we continued to message each other.  Somehow we both felt entirely comfortable talking to each other and I finally asked his last name so that I could add him as a friend.  From there I was able to see what a good looking guy he was and of course I became more interested in this stranger I had messaged out of the blue on myspace.  I also found out that the little boys in all his photos were his nephews and that he was wrapped around their fingers.  In one message later on, he told me that he grew up in Coppell (not even 10 minutes from where I grew up) but that he actually moved to Austin in January 2008 for his position as a baseball coach so he had just changed his city on myspace to Austin.  Right then I knew that this would only ever be a friendly chat on myspace because I had my roots set down in Dallas and I knew I would never leave.
We continued to talk on myspace but I just considered him as a new friend and that was it.  I kept my guard up and tried my hardest not to start having feelings for someone who didn't live where I lived.  I ended up giving him my number one day when I was sure that I wouldn't be online very much over the next few days and told him to text me if he felt like talking.  We ended up texting back and forth later that night after I had gone out with one of my girlfriends and he told me that he would be coming to Dallas the next weekend to see his nephews.  I knew my girlfriend and I were going to this one bar one night that weekend to play pool with the guy she was dating so I invited him along to meet up with us. 

night out with my girl friend when Allen and I were texting for the first time

(don't mind us and how special we are!)

I was just inviting him out with us as a friend but I never realized how much of a leap I was taking with that one friendly invitation . . .

You can find Part Two HERE