A love story

Jer and I celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary last week. (And by "celebrated" I mean he made me pancakes in the morning and we both worked and came home and we ate ice cream in the evening.) We've known each other for almost twelve years now, and we dated for three years before we got married. That's a lot of numbers and a lot of time (and so very little time in the grand scheme of it all, I suppose.)

So what went on during all those years?

I was quite the boy crazy college freshman. (And sophomore. And junior. I like to think I leveled off and grew up a bit by senior year.) And would you know that Jeremy was the first boy in college that I had a cute little crush on? I don't actually have a strong recollection of the first time we met, but I remember that I ended up going to a Coldplay concert with friends a few weeks in, and I was so excited that the cute boy with the unpronounceable last name was also going.

We ended up chatting a lot before the concert started- not that I had anything to do with it. Boy crazy and frustratingly quiet, shy, and void of conversational topics- that was me in an awkward nutshell. Jeremy has always been good at trying to include anyone he sees on the fringes, and he saw me sitting on my own (probably journaling in an effort to look cool), and I became the subject of his friendly graces. We talked about music, he started a playlist on his iPod mini that he said he would burn to a CD for me, and I was overwhelmingly excited that the cute boy was engaging in (likely one-sided) conversation with me AND we had a reason to talk again if I wanted to get that CD.

babies

Fall semester continued on and we were in the same friend group, but anytime I tried to talk with him I didn't know what to say, and he had run out of conversation too. If we ever ended up alone, it was painstakingly awkward, and we both knew it. Regardless, my cute little crush continued, because he had great hair and great glasses and great jeans and he liked The Beatles.

Spring semester came upon us and I decided to volunteer to help with lighting in the theatre production of Marvin's Room. Jer happened to have a small role in it, and I honestly can't remember if I decided to volunteer before or after I knew that. Awkwardness still ensued anytime we were alone, but thankfully Marvin's Room meant we were mostly together in group settings.

Cast and crew of Marvin's Room, Jeremy ever the goofy one.

Alongside Marvin's Room, one of my best friend schemed up some time for me, her, and Jeremy to hang out together. We spent an evening running around campus, taking lots of pictures and ending up at the baseball fields. The two of them did most of the talking, and I watched, googly-eyed at the boy whose last name I probably still couldn't pronounce. We set up another time for the three of us to get together, and said best friend bailed shortly before it happened. So Jer and I found ourselves with an evening alone, and we were both terrified because we knew we wouldn't have anything to talk about. We spent some time together eating cereal in the dugouts at the baseball fields and stammering out some sentences in between long awkward pauses. We finally did find some conversation- emotionally unloading all the negativity in our lives- forging a connection that felt so strong but was so unhealthily shallow.

One of our first pictures together, a night charged with awkwardness and relentless flirting

In the weeks that followed, Marvin's Room was the main event, rehearsal after rehearsal after rehearsal. Jer and I remained awkward anytime we were together, and my crush only grew. After opening night we went for a walk and the best thing that could ever happen to an awkward girl who has an awkward crush on a cute boy happened- he kissed me. OH GLORY BE. I probably still couldn't pronounce his last name but I kissed the cute boy with great hair and great glasses and great jeans who liked The Beatles!

I went to bed that night with a goofy smile on my face and felt like I was in a fairy tale.

The fairy take came to a quick demise about 12 hours after THE KISS, when I saw him in the cafeteria and he pretended to not see me and walk the other direction. A classic move that happened for most of the rest of the semester. (I'm over it now, now worries.)

We made partial peace by the end of the semester and parted ways for the summer.

Sophomore year started and Jeremy and I were still in the same friend group and saw each other often. New freshman joined our group and I grew to be best friends with a lovely girl who I had actually met during the previous semester, when she was visiting as a prospective student and stayed in my dorm room ... the same night as THE KISS. Irony of all ironies, she and Jeremy began dating later that year.

So to recap:
1. Awkward crush on cute boy.
2. Kiss cute boy.
3. Cute boy pretends I don't exist.
4. Cute boy starts dating my best friend.

I don't dwell on those details much, it was a confusing time of life even without being boy crazy and heartbroken, and Jer and I formed a decent friendship through all of my third-wheeling over the next two years while they dated, and then after that as well. (You can be well assured that my Freshman year crush was long over.)

College graduation came and went, and there is photographic evidence of our friendship- see:

I love this picture for so many reasons. From left: Stephen and I have babies born on the exact same day (hooray May 3, 2016!), Dustin and I still see each other every year or two, I married Jeremy, Caleb and I remain long-distance friends and will be seeing each other for the first time in AGES in just a week, and Graham and I live in the same crazy city and see each other fairly regularly.

Fast-forward a year after graduation, and I found myself back in our little college town for a friend's wedding. Jeremy still lived in the area and arranged a reunion of our friend group, since many of us came back to town. He and I had not kept in touch since graduation but we were still friends by association.

I remember the moment I first saw him again, we were at a pizza place in downtown Lexington and the table was crowded, but for whatever reason he stuck out to me. I honestly hadn't even given him any thought in a year, but it was like a long-awaited meet-cute in the restaurant that day. The moment came and went quickly, we hugged and I got a little flutter in my stomach, and then we got caught up in conversations with other people, hardly even saying goodbye at the end of the evening.

I was surprised the next day when he texted me, mentioning that it had been great to see me and he was bummed we hadn't had the opportunity to chat the night before, and maybe he and I could get together that night?

Apparently our meet-cute had affected him as well.

So we did get together that night, and what did we do? We TALKED. For HOURS. Late into the night. About everything imaginable. A far cry from five years previous. Our conversation was fluid and enjoyable (and completely platonic). It was so much fun, we did the same thing the next night. And then I went back home, a few states away, and couldn't get our newfound friendship off my mind.

In the weeks that followed we sent email after email after email. Our friendship grew and deepened in a very healthy way, all the while staying platonic, but becoming very special. We were both figuring out what to do with our lives post-college, and we asked each other hard questions, gave encouragement, formed inside jokes, and got to really know who the other was. Sure maybe in hindsight that is when we started falling in love, but neither one of us was yet aware of it.

There was another wedding coming up, two months after our initial reunion. I was in the wedding party, and Jeremy was invited but unsure if he could get there. He ended up arranging to be there last minute and so there we were in northern Michigan in the summertime, after two months of intensely beautiful and connecting emails, and we finally realized what exactly was going on once we were face-to-face. I wasn't a very good bridesmaid that weekend (something I wish I could have a do-over with), my thoughts and every moment of spare time was with this boy, this man, who came back into my life unexpectedly and made me a better person. We were young and naive, but we (thankfully!) were so far removed from the awkward Freshmen we were when we first met.

At the wedding where it all began (again)

Sometime after that we were officially dating, though there is no "official" date for that. I travelled to Scotland and Northern Ireland and spent the bulk of both trips Skyping with Jer (we're taking hours upon hours at a time.) I had already been anticipating a big life change after that trip, and so I decided that life change would be moving to Lexington to be closer to Jeremy. A year after that I moved to Los Angeles for the same reason.

Where else do the dating wanna-be hippies go?

It was a beautiful beginning to our dating relationship, and of course there were rocky and ugly moments in the middle, but everything culminated to getting engaged by a creek near my parent's house in Pennsylvania on Christmas Eve 2012, two and a half years after that trip to northern Michigan, and I took his unpronounceable last name on a farm in PA on June 1, 2013.

December 24, 2012

If anyone would have pointed him out to me Freshman year and said "That's the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with," I'm not sure I would have believed it, and probably would have been terrified about the potential of a lifetime of poor conversation. It's a good thing that the normal trajectory of life is to always be growing up, always looking to better yourself. When we started dating we were very different people than those awkward Freshman at the Coldplay concert.

June 1, 2013

I love that one of my first memories of Jer, at that concert, is one that showcases one of his best qualities- still today, and probably forevermore, he is an includer. He can't see someone on their own or someone who needs help without going out of his way to strike up conversation and make them feel included, or offer a hand in whatever they need help with. Would we have even spoken that night if not for Jer's caring heart? Perhaps it's due to just that personality trait that I have a lifetime ahead of me with this man who still has great hair, and great glasses, and great jeans, and loves The Beatles.

April 2016

By the way, "Koz" rhymes with "Oz," like in the Wizard of Oz. The rest of it is pronounced "low."

The Kozeluh family, Easter 2017.

Koz-low.