Our Love Story: Part 2

If you read Our Love Story Part 1, you may be wondering just where this story is going between David and I. We left off at the worst first date in history. When people ask me what our first date was, I am always unsure of what to say, because I’m not even sure that our short awkward meeting at Flying M Coffeehouse can even be considered a first date—or maybe I’d just like to forget that it happened altogether! Needless to say, after that point, our predicament only worsened. I was a junior in high school, he was a freshman in college, and our awkward coffee date only made those facts worse.

A short while after our coffee date, we had both chosen to move on. I was always mature for my age, but I was dealing with high school friend drama and prom dates while David was focused on business classes and playing a collegiate sport. We were in very different seasons of life. We both came to terms with the fact that it just wasn’t going to work at this time. I think we secretly hoped that later on down the road, maybe there was still a possibility. David even mentioned that he had considered transferring schools to play golf in Seattle, where I was planning on going to college. Maybe our paths would realign then, right?

The Cold Shoulder

9 months passed by after our coffee date and David and I still hadn’t spoken at all. I had moved on and was focused on making my senior year the best yet (and not wasting time on dating anyone!). As you know from the Mumford & sons revelation of 2013, David and I had always shared a common interest in music. David was at a Hillsong concert with his friend Nate, who happened to be texting me about the concert. I wish I could dig into the text archives of David and Karli and tell you what David said when he decided to send me a text that evening, but I can’t. He had opened the door of conversation after 9 months of no communication, but I was not interested. I already knew how this story ended.

It was Thanksgiving day of 2014, one full year after our first Black Friday meeting, when I got another text from David. It read, “Happy Thanksgiving!” I chuckled to myself wondering why he had even bothered to text me. There was no point in talking to him, so I gave him the cold shoulder for awhile. I responded to his text maybe 2 hours later, “You too!” and figured once again, that would be it. I have to give David some credit here, because he was relentless. He kept texting me, and I kept pushing him off. Eventually, I realized he was not going to give up, and I couldn’t help but wonder why.

The Snapchat

I continued to respond to David and got wrapped up in talking to him again. At the time my sister, Kendra, was home from college for winter break. She knew that I had been talking to David again and knew all about how our relationship crashed and burned the first time around. So, she decided to take matters into her own hands (but with my approval). She took my phone and sent a snapchat to David saying, “When are you going to take my sister on a real date?” I flipped when I saw this, but then I realized that she was right. We had to give this another shot.

Church Street Corners

After some rekindling of feelings, I agreed to attend a young adults church service with David. Thankfully, you don’t have to do much talking at church, which was a major relief for me after the PTSD from our awkward coffee date. David had just gotten off a plane from an Arizona golf trip and came straight from the airport. If that isn’t dedication, I am not sure what is. I sat by him at the service, self conscious of my voice when singing and overthinking everything as per usual. Meanwhile, David sung whole heartedly without abandon. He listened intently when the pastor gave his message and even took notes. At this point, I thought to myself, Oh boy, I’m in deep here.

After the service ended, David and I stood on a street corner talking in the dead of winter for over an hour. Little did he know how much I hate being cold, but at this point in time, I didn’t even care how much snow there was on the ground or what the temperature was. The church parking lot had emptied of all of its cars when we finally decided to head home. I don’t think either of us knew or cared what we talked about that evening, we just wanted to spend time together.

We continued to find more excuses to spend time together. I had early release my senior year of high school, so we spent Wednesday afternoons doing homework together at Village Coffee before David went to golf practice. (Are you sensing a theme here? I really liked the idea of “dates” that didn’t require me to actually talk much because he made me so nervous). We knew that these church and homework rendezvous couldn’t last forever, and that at some point, we had to have the ever so dreaded conversation: The Define the Relationship Talk.

But we will save that pivotal conversation for next week! As always, thanks for stopping in! We are just getting to the good part!

If you liked this blog post, you may also like Our Love Story: Part 1, Our Love Story: Part 3, The Top 10 Things I Learned from Our Wedding Day and 5 Reasons Why I Became a Wedding Photographer