ten years.

we met almost eleven years ago. on an intramural basketball team at byu. the following weekend we went to the drive-in with a big group of friends. i made the first move. i held his hand. i still remember what he was wearing. old navy carpenter jeans, adidas tenny runners, a white structure tshirt and hat, and a gray adidas hoodie. he smelled so good. we broke the honor code every night for the next seven months. talking and laughing. laughing until my sides hurt. on st. patrick's day he asked me to be his wife. in front of the big, wooden indian on fifth west. with a wilted, white tulip that he pulled from the pocket of that gray adidas hoodie. we spent a long summer apart. the last week of july he flew to indiana to be with me. we were married in the chicago temple on a fiery, hot, and humid day in august. august fourth, actually. the night before the wedding, i sat with a few friends and my family, in the lobby of the hotel, eating taco bell, and talking about everything and nothing. i don't recall feeling nervous or second guessing my decision. he told me later that the longer he sat waiting for me in the temple, the more convinced he became that i had run for dear life. a few years later, i found a few notes i jotted down on our wedding day. it read: "how did i get here? to this place. today. this was not my plan. a bigger plan came into play today." and on the other side of the paper: "my heart has always known what it wants. and today, and forever, it wants matt." i think about how young and naive we were ten years ago. we were in school. we had very little money. and, at that point, no jobs. a lot of our friends thought we were crazy. but we knew that we made each other happy. deliriously happy. and we knew that our families loved us and supported our decision and the rest of the details didn't matter so much. look at us now. four degrees, four kids, and ten years later. the rest of the details still don't matter very much.