Our Story, Part 4...

This is Part 4 of Our Story.  To get the complete story, read in order starting with OUR STORY PART 1, OUR STORY PART 2, OUR STORY PART 3.

I've been feeling for a while that I need to write down Dean's and my story for our family history books, for our children and grandchildren to know and understand how their parents/grandparents ended up together.  But I realized that I needed to give some back story because there are some key people along the way that set me on some necessary paths to get to Dean that will help you to understand who I am, how I've changed over the years, and why Dean is the best man I've ever met and how he's perfect for me.  I didn't want to write a short love story "We met at church, dated, married, had a baby 3 years later....", that's too vague for my tastes.  I want my posterity to know WHY I love Dean, and why we go perfectly together.

Our Story, Part 4

I don’t remember exactly what time we agreed to meet at wheelchair friend’s house for our first date Wednesday evening, but meet there we did, but not until I decided to purposely be a couple minutes late from dragging my feet.  I gave myself kudos just for showing up.  We went in to say hi to her and laughed and talked a bit, and then I could tell Dean was so eager to go so we went outside to head to dinner. He was sure to be a gentleman and opened the car door for me, and I hesitantly got in his parents car that he had borrowed.  

I asked him where we were going and he said Claim Jumper in Tukwila.  I’d never been there but I’d heard it had pretty good food.  Sounds good to me!  On the way up we did the usual first date questions: When’s your birthday? Where were you born? How many kids are in your family?  What do you like to do?  Tell me more about your mission to Switzerland.  Tell me about what you were up to while I was in Switzerland.  The conversation actually flowed with ease on the drive up there and we found out we both came from families of 6 children. Our parents were divorced.  We’d been Washington residents most of our lives. We only lived a couple miles apart but our paths never crossed because we always went to different schools and were in different congregations at church growing up.  We eventually figured out that we were both at the same baseball game when High School Boyfriend was playing Dean’s high school baseball team and Dean was also at the game. 

 

Even though I knew and recognized Dean at church on the day that he gave his homecoming talk, I didn’t and still don’t have any concrete memories of him before his mission.  I can’t look back and say, “Hey, remember when we were at that get together at so and so’s house?”  Nope. I even have our very first picture we were ever in together.  We were at wheelchair friend’s house for her missionary farewell.  Dean was there, but I don’t remember him being there, but I have a group picture to prove we were both there, even with me and my blonde hair and way too dark of roots showing. I knew Dean but he hadn’t made enough of an impression on me for me to be able to pin point get togethers where we were the common denominator.  Plus, I was dating Mistake Boyfriend before Dean left on his mission so I was too wrapped up in all that drama to really give notice to what else and who else was going on around me. I don’t say these things to be rude, I wish I could remember him, but I simply can’t. 

We arrived at Claim Jumper and put our names on the list since there was a little bit of a wait.  We took a pager that would let us know when our table was ready and headed outside and sat next to one another on a bench outside.  We talked a little bit about who knows what and the conversation died off for just a few seconds.  It was sunset and the evening sun was shining right on my face directly in my eyes.  Dean leaned over so that he could take a closer look at my face but more specifically, my eyes, as the sunset was shining in them.  “Wow, you have really beautiful eyes.”  I immediately gave a mocking smile and rolled my eyes and turned away from him thinking, “Good gracious, is he going to be cheesy like this all night? Kill me now.  Can this date just be over please?”  I wasn’t one that likes to be smothered with cliché lines like that one a first date.  He got the hint that he was being cheesy and backed away and shied away for a little bit. And yes, I in fact do have beautiful eyes.  As our relationship progressed he commented on them dozens of times and would just stare and stare at them and the rainbow of colors that make them up.  Someone would pay big money to have an iris transplant from me. 

Our pager buzzed and we made our way inside towards the back of the restaurant to a little table for 2.  I was starving, but I still couldn’t show this guy that I wasn’t even wanting to be out on a date with that I could probably out eat him!  “Soup and salad for me, please.”  Dean had no shame and ordered something hearty. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I remember looking at it and wishing he would go to the bathroom so that I could steal a bite or two of it.  And not wanting to seem like a pig, I didn’t finish my soup and salad, but I sure drank a lot of water.  Dumb, dumb girl.

The conversation at dinner was nonstop and Dean was a little different than other guys I’d gone out with, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.  There was something about him that I thought was sweet, but all my other annoyances with him and just general lack of attraction to him completely overshadowed what I thought was sweet about him.  I had already made up my mind about him before the date even began.  He was a pro at asking me questions about myself, always ready to fire the next question, and he was eating up all of my answers with enthusiasm, like they were their own fulfilling meal themselves.   We had a pretty easy give and take, conversation-wise. 

 

We finished up dinner, I took one last swig of water, Dean paid, and we headed out to his car.  He opened my door again, I got in, and then he got in.  “Well, where do you want to go now, Michelle?”  Uhhh, he didn’t have anything else planned? Who was this guy?!  “I don’t care.”  Secretly I wanted to go to McDonald’s and get a Big Mac but I was too proud to say that.  “Hmmm, ok, I have an idea.  How about Alki Beach?”  “Ok, fine.” 

We drove over to Costco to put some gas in the car and then we headed north in I-5 and across the bridge to Alki.  We parked, got out of the car, and then Dean walked back to the trunk, opened it, and pulled out a big blanket.  I then started to laugh to myself because I was putting the pieces together.  “You planned on coming up here all along, huh? That’s why you had the blanket in the trunk.”  Sheepishly, “Yeah.”  Good gravy.  This newly returned missionary thought he was going to make out with me on Alki Beach. That’s strike 2 and a half, buddy. I’d sooner eat rocks and die than do that with him.

We started to walk across the grass and over to the beach when we spot a couple a little ways away.  She was sitting on a bench and he got down one on knee in front of her and we could tell he was proposing.  Dean then thought he would be hilarious and mockingly get down and one knee in front of me and pretend like he was opening up an imaginary engagement box.  I could have kicked him in the gut right then and there.  Annnnnnd there’s strike 3.  I just sighed, rolled my eyes, and walked around him towards the water.  Dude, who was this guy?!?!?

He hurriedly got up from his fake proposal stance, ran after me, and then picked a spot to lay down his hopeful loooooooove blanket.  We sat down side by side but not touching and talked and talked about any and everything.  Again, as much as I wasn’t digging on him, for the most part I did enjoy talking to him.  He listened, I listened.  

After a while my back and bum were hurting from sitting in the same position for so long so I laid down on the blanket.  And of course Dean took that as permission that he could lay down next to me, but I made sure that he wasn’t touching me at all.  We continued chatting for a while and then I suddenly got bored and didn’t want to talk anymore.  Well, what better way to insult to injury than getting bored and falling asleep on your first date?   I was out cold within a matter of seconds.  Dean tells me that he just laid there on his side with his head propped up in his hand and he just stared at me and tried to memorize every feature of mine that he could see illuminated between the light of the moon and the light from the street lamp by his car.  Meanwhile I dozed, and apparently at one point I moved, grabbed my sandal that I had taken off when we first sat down, and I stuck it under my head as makeshift pillow.  Comfy.

Dean observed that I was out cold so he took that opportunity to edge a little closer to me, still not touching though.  Eventually he put his face close enough to the top of my forehead to smell my hair, hello creep wad, and he gave me the tiniest of kisses on the top of my forehead.  There’s strike 4.  I stirred a little bit not knowing completely what was going on.  I sensed my personal space had just been invaded.  Did I just imagine him kissing my forehead or was that for real?  I’m so tired. I’ll deal with that later. I’m going back to sleep.  

Eventually I woke up at about 1:30 a.m. and there was Dean, still gazing at me.  Despite my snottiness towards him, there was something about me that he was mesmerized by.  I told him we needed to get going.   I had to be to work by 7 the next morning and we still had to drive back to Federal Way to pick up my car at wheelchair friend’s house.

I grabbed my sandals, he grabbed the blanket, and we were off.  We continued talking on the way home, well, I mostly kept talking so that I could stay awake.  We ended up discussing dreams and Dean mentioned to me like it was no big deal that I was in a dream of his on his mission.  Strike 5.  “Ummm, what?  You were dreaming about me on your mission?  What kind of dreams?”  “Uhhhh, uhhhh, no, you were just IN a dream I had. I don’t remember what it was. I just remember you were in it.”  Yikes.  That’s just something you don’t tell a girl on your first date.  It creeped me out big time for some reason and I all but encouraged his to speed to get back to my car.

Once we did get to my car, I said an obligatory “thanks” and I quickly hopped out of his car and headed towards mine.  But he was quick, and had hopped out at the same time and met me at the front of his car.  I could tell he suddenly got very nervous and he said, “Soooo, uhhh, I want to do something I haven’t done in a long time since before my mission.”  I looked and him and sharply said, “No.  Nope.  I don’t kiss on the first date.”  Heck yeah I kiss on the first date!  I’d kiss someone even if we weren’t on a date.  But I had absolutely negative desire to kiss Dean.  “Ummm, no, no, I mean, uhhh, I wanted to give you a hug.”  Nice recovery, Dean.  “Ok, fine.”  I then gave him a halfhearted one armed hug just to get the heck outta there and all but sprinted to my car. He later told me that he was so bummed out because he really thought I was going to kiss him goodnight.  I don’t know what part of the date he thought went so well that I would kiss him goodnight.  The multiple eye rolls?  The fact that I fell asleep for almost 2 hours on the beach from boredom?  The fact that he told me he’d had a dream about me?  Silly silly man.  No kiss for you.

I drove away, so tired and yet so relieved that the pity date was done.  I made it home, went to bed, and went to work the next morning, and life resumed back to normal. 

So how in the world did pity date Dean and snotty Michelle end up getting married 16 months later? 

Dean saved me.  He literally saved me. 

Oh, and I had to drive out to Puyallup to give my Mom her insulin shot because she was going to go into diabetic shock and die.