My Soul Mate

Nancy has inspired me to write down some memories from the past when I think of them, whether or not they are of much interest to any of you, so I am going to try to to do that. She said she was reading something and it said something like writing your memories is one important way to actually give meaning to your experiences and increase understandings about our lives--for us and our posterity. Maybe those were her words or maybe theirs. I don't know. I don't even know who "they" are. But that is what I think of when I read the quote at the top of my blog.In two weeks Chancho and I will commemorate our marriage so I thought I would try to post a few things about him.Our relationship happened pretty fast, which I swore would never happen after a long time relationship I had been in ended. I swore that you had to date somebody for a long time so that you really knew them blah blah blah. Well, Chancho and I went on our first date June 30, 2000. Things progressed kind of slowly at first, mostly because I was semi-dating a few people and seriously dating another person. I was really unsure of Chancho until he went on a trip the last week of July/first week of August to California. I remember he came over to my house the first evening he was back and I looked at him standing on my porch and thought, "What has been my problem?" I could feel myself falling in love and thought it was very strange that all thoughts of others were vanishing from my mind and suddenly I wanted to be with him all of the time.
Isn't it fun to remember back to that? My love for my husband continues to increase, but that time of absolute infatuation--the beating heart and blurred vision of anticipation when I heard his car pulling into my driveway--is mostly a thing of the past. Nothing to be traded, but wonderful memories (and I'm not saying he doesn't set my heart racing now, but you know what I mean).For most all of August we were together every day. We started meeting each other's families, going to church together, and began to dread when the night was getting late and we would soon have to part company. Weekends were heaven--no work and only all day to spend doing nothing but whatever we wanted together.Early in September I began thinking, "This really could be it. That is crazy. I just don't feel anything stopping me. Except...one thing...I'm not really sure if we are a match on the spiritual level. We are the same religion but I don't know if he feels the same that I do about things that are crucial to me." That very night we were sitting on the couch in my parent's "conversation pit" and somehow the conversation of religion came up. We talked until 3 am and after I thought, "Hm. Now I know. I'm going to marry this guy."

A few days later Chancho invited some of my family over and cooked a French meal for us. I remember exactly the skirt and shirt I was wearing. Afterwards we were snuggling and I pulled his face to mine and said, "I'm going to tell you something, but don't freak out, okay?"

"Okay," he said.

"I'm in love with you."

Pause. Pause. "Thank you," he said with a smile and kissed me for a long time.

Some people laugh at that. And I might have if it wasn't for the feelings I had. I had been through a lot more serious relationships than he had and he had told me before that time that he had never told any girl that he loved her. So, I knew that when he told me, he would mean it forever. He told me about 3 days later. :)We were engaged on October 1, 2000 and married Dec. 19, 2000. So much for knowing him for a long time, huh? Isn't it nice to know that sometimes things in life are just right?

One fun thing about our engagement is that by this time in my life my sisters had become quite concerned for me. I had been really heartbroken and had turned a bit wild with my dating and was not making the best choices. The second time we ever hung out, Chancho took me for a ride on his dad's motorcycle. We went to my sister's house because I had to pick something up. Kathy immediately loved him. I remember her asking me, "Why can't you marry him?" And at the time I was very confused and said I didn't think I felt anything for him. Because everything changed and happened so quickly, she still was not sure my position. She kept asking how I felt about Chancho and was so sad and disappointed and would always let out this large sigh when I would tell her that I didn't think he was the one for me.

Chancho had done some work on Kathy's computer for her and the night we got engaged we went over to her house and I hid my hand while Chancho told her, "I think I forgot to do reboot something (or some other talk that we didn't understand)." Instead he opened a word document and wrote, "Perla's getting married. Can you guess to who?" Kathy looked at it, her eyes narrowed, she stared at us and cried, in this high voice, "WHAT??? WHO??? WHAT???" It was a very fun night and she was very relieved when I told her that I had been putting her off the last month or so and that I was very much madly in love with Chancho!

So, I apologize if any of you read that and were bored to tears but I think my daughters, at least, will someday look forward to reading this.

The End.