Five years ago

A little more than five years ago, I was at the gym and got onto one of those walking machines. There was a girl on the next machine and I said hi to her, but didn't answer. I thought she was the rudest girl ever and got real mad. But when I was about to leave, I saw her again at the stationary bicycle. Our eyes met, and instinctively, I smiled. She smiled back and waved. I thought maybe maybe she wasn't so rude after all.

The next day, I went ahead and talked to her and we became great friends. We would schedule our workouts so we would do them together. She would call me her 'gym buddy' and we had really cool conversations. Eventually I got some nerved and asked for her number. Then we started to talk even more.

Our first date was difficult to come by. We were supposed to go to the movies one Saturday, but when I called she had left on a family trip. When I confronted her, she admitted forgetting about our date and was totally mortified. We rescheduled, but she forgot again and left on another family trip. I decided to give her a last chance. We went to the movies and had a great time. She even let me hold her hand. I tried to sneak a kiss out of her, but she wouldn't do it. She didn't push me away. Instead, she held my head very tight, like saying, "Please, let's do this right... let's be boyfriend and girlfriend first."

The next day I went on a week-long trip with some buddies. Two days into the trip, I realized that I really REALLY liked this girl. And I got really sad and wanted to go back right then and there, but we were 1000 miles away, so I had to wait till the trip was over. The first thing I did after I came back was go see her. I didn't even see my family till a couple of hours later, even though we lived in the same house.

That was on a Tuesday. That very Saturday, we went out and I (grudgingly) asked her to be my girlfriend. I didn't really want to ask, because I wasn't into formalities. But she totally was into them, so I had no choice. :)

Immediately afterwards we had our very first kiss. It was a quick one, but it was really nice. And that's how it all started.

That was exactly five years ago this day.

My sweet, sweet Ivy, I will never forget you.