Apparently, Sasparilla and I first met in our freshman orientation class at Louisiana Tech (How 'bout dem dawgs?) in Ruston, LA. I say apparently because I do not remember this meeting. Sasparilla does and he loves to say how I was an Ice Queen. I completely ignored all his advances and never gave him the time of day. Now we laugh about that and say that Sasparilla had yet to get his Game and that is why his come ons had no effect on me whatsoever. The Game came later in his college/fraternity days.
In the years that followed we did not see each other. Except, that Sasparilla saw me one random evening on TV as he was watching the Miss Louisiana competition. He saw me in the swimsuit competition and proceeded to tell all the ladies in the room how I had shoved him off in freshman orientation. I know they thought I was a terrible person. But he deserved the comment, because I was an Ice Queen.
We did not see one another again until after we'd both graduated. Sasparilla was working for a local magazine as Creative Director and I had just returned home to Shreveport from Little Rock to finish my Masters. During the summer of 2003 I helped a friend of mine throw a pageant. I wrangled all the teenage contestants and helped MC. My friend called Sasparilla at the magazine and asked if they would cover the event. Normally they do not, but my all my friend had to do was mention free food and my future husband was there. Sasparilla only planned to shoot the one evening of the dinner, but then he saw me and all his plans changed.
As I was working the registration for dinner this strange tall dude walks up to me and says, "Don't I know you? Do you remember me?" Um, what? Talk about a cliche come on line. I had absolutely no idea who he was and was about to call one of the other guys over to escort him out when he said,"I know you from Tech." Oh ok well then ok.
We visited for a bit then went in for the dinner. Sasparilla decided to stick around for the entire week of the pageant. He followed us to every event and took countless pics - the entire time knowing his magazine would never publish them. He took every opportunity to talk me up. All the mom's and their daughters were routing for him. He was actually starting to get on my nerves like no body's business. At the end of the pageant he asked me for my number. So as not to be rude and hurt his feelings, I gave it to him. But I had no intention of going out with him.
He called me a few days later and I amazingly said yes. We went on the most terrible date ever. We had both reached that point in datedom where we were tired of always pulling teeth with our date to get them to talk. So we decided at the same time to make the other person work for it. Yeah, that did not work out well. We just sat there at dinner in the most uncomfortable silence. We left dinner, said our goodbyes, and both thought we'd never see each other again.
Fast forward about 3 or 4 months. Sasparilla gets tickets to a show and starts going through his phone calling girls (nice). His first few calls could not go. So he gets to my number and thinks, "Why not?" Romantic, right? He just happened to get me on a good day. I thought, "Why not?" So he picked me up for the date a few days later with a sweet flower. He took me to dinner at a great Asian restaurant and then to the show. We had a great time! I had relaxed a bit and so had he. We really enjoyed each other. We went out for about 3 weeks (and each time he picked me up he had a flower that went with our date) and then I went insane.
At this time I was finishing my second year of grad school and had my residency coming up. I knew I'd be moving and really did not want to get in a relationship. So I let my Type A, anal retentive self take over and ruined everything. I started to over analyze everything about him and thought the flowers were a sign. He liked me more than him, so to keep from hurting him I'll just break it off now before we get too serious.
I'd made this decision before our last date. Sasparilla picked me up and brought me to his house for dinner. He made his famous marinara sauce (which was delicious). He had a great time and I was a ball of nerves because I knew I needed to break it off. We said our goodbyes and I decided I'd break it off the next day.
Well, I did, but not too well at all. At a break during one of my night classes I called him. Yeah not good at all. I broke it off over the phone, in my car, in the pouring rain. He was driving home from work and caught totally off guard. He likens it to the scene in Say Anything when John Cusack stands outside his lady loves house and raises the stereo over his head as Peter Cetera sings. It was awful! I have never felt so bad.
I think deep down I knew I shouldn't have, but I did it anyway.
So later that year I moved off to Monroe for my residency and Sasparilla went on with his life. In December 2005, I started to feel in my prayer times that I needed to pray for him. At this point I had forgotten his name so I was praying for Old What's His Name. I later found out he was going through a tough time dating and just wanted to give up. How awesome is God!
Later that month I happened to be in town with my Mom and friends having lunch at Superior's. Sasparilla also happened to be in the same restaurant with his boss celebrating one month with the company. He saw me but I did not see him (of course). I did not notice him the entire time they were eating. As he was leaving he decided to come by the table and rub things in a little. Because he knew as soon as he left my mother would ask why I broke up with him because she always liked him. He said hi and then in my surprise to see the guy I'd been praying for, I jumped up out of my seat like a rocket and gave him a huge hug. He and everyone at my table was shocked. But I was just happy to see him. He said hi and asked how I was. I did the same and then we said goodbye. I remember having this small desire for him to call. But we both went back to our lives and kinda thought of each other occasionally.
In 2006, after two years of living in Monroe, I decided (for several reasons) that I wanted to move back home. I started looking for jobs. I also started looking up people on MySpace (when it was the Facebook of its time) who I used to be friends with. I wanted to see if anyone was still in Shreveport. Then I saw him. On another person's page. I just stopped and stared for like 30 minutes. I decided to write him. Which to anyone who knows me is a shock. I'm one of those girls who refused to make the first move. I always believed it was the guys job.
So I'd felt so bad about how I'd broken it off with him and so I emailed him and told him so apologizing profusly. He was so sweet and said it was no big thing. We went on from there. We emailed and Yahoo Messengered like crazy for about a month. Then on July 7, 2006 we had our first date. It was love at 3rd sight! I knew as soon as we started talking this was different. I was completely comfortable with him. I knew I could be myself and I would be safe with him. I had never felt that with anyone else, not even when we first dated. God had planned our lives and experience perfectly so that when we met for the third time we would be ready to accept each other and love.
It was the most wonderful time in my life. He proposed July 20, 2007 at the ice cream shop where we had our very first date. He had one of the girls video tape the proposal. I'll post it here soon. Right after he proposed we went to his Mom's house and all our family was there. It was perfect. We married on January 19, 2008 and it was the most wonderful day of my life. You can see the wedding and honeymoon here and here.
God is always in control and He will bring you to your mate in His good time. I always wanted to make it happen in my time and made myself miserable for so long. Now I see his work and plan clearly. Trust in Him, He will take care of you.
My beloved is mine, and I am his
Song of Solomon 2:16
