An Act Of Defiance
At the encouragement of a friend to remember to update the wedding blog, I thought I would do a little reminiscing this evening! If you make it through the whole story, I will be extremely impressed…I got detailed again…but believe it or not, I actually cut it down. For one thing, I didn’t even tell you what we actually ate!! Well…you’ll see…and now that I’m posting, it’s the 12th, but not by much…
An Act Of Defiance
Today marks one year ago exactly that Josiah and I first spent time together as acquaintances/friends. It wasn’t a date or anything of the sort…but as you’ll hear, it could have easily turned into a very awkward situation!
We were both at church on Sunday, January 11th. It was a rare occasion where I’d gone to church by myself and was feeling particularly out of place. I was sitting near the back because I had arrived just after the worship started. At the end of the service, as people were beginning to mingle and others to leave, I was gathering up my things when I received a text from Josiah! A very harmless message, it said “Where did you go? I just saw you..” I believe my reply was something akin to “I’m still here-in the back. You’ll see my hat!”…(for those of you who have seen it, I was wearing my black and white fedora..it’s difficult to miss) Needless to say he found me, and sat down. We started chatting, and decided that since it was such a beautiful day, we should try to get some of our friends together and go to the park! As we sat and talked more, I decided that I did not feel in the mood for the park, that I wanted to go home and rest for a little while. I said, “Why don’t you go ahead and get everybody together and go to the park and then we can all go to a movie afterward?”
One of the goals of the afternoon, as far as I knew, was that this was an opportunity for me to get to know some of the church members better. I had expressed to Josiah that I didn’t know anyone very well and hadn’t been going out and doing much lately. He saw an opportunity and seized it! (Little did I know that he’d been trying to set up group activities for months in an effort to get to know me better as a friend!) So there we decided that a movie would be the event of the day (Josiah decided he wanted a nap too because he’d been pulling some long hours with work and school..and the fact that I balked on going to the park may have had something to do with it as well ;-), and that we would meet at the theater to see… M-m-m-mall Cop. Yes…I was thrilled at the prospect of paying $9 for a movie I wouldn’t even rent, but I’d already agreed to go and had poo-pooed wanting to go to the park, so I couldn’t very well shoot down the movie choice too! Josiah was so enthusiastic about wanting to see it…I couldn’t disappoint. We went our separate ways, deciding to meet at the theater for…goodness… I think it may have been a..well…whatever the showing time was, I called EVERYONE LOCALLY THAT I COULD THINK OF and invited them to the movie! And guess what…everyone was either busy or, wonder of wonders, didn’t want to pay 9 bucks to see Kevin James run around a shopping complex dressed in a security uniform.
MEANWHILE… Josiah called some of his friends as well… (he now admits that maybe he didn’t try THAT hard to get anyone to come with us!) Finally, the time came for me to make my way to the theater. I drove feeling a mixture of nervousness and anxiety..would any of my familiar friends show up?? Did Josiah think this was one of those “test dates” where we were inviting friends along as a buffer in case we were repelled by one another?? Would any of Josiah’s friends think this was a dry run for something potentially more serious?? I was a bit of a basket case by the time I reached the theater and longed for the moment I could sink into that semi-comfortable chair and zone in on the movie screen. I arrived with five minutes to spare before the previews were to begin. I sent Josiah a text to see if he was already in his seat with the friends he had brought. None of my friends showed up…I was hoping his friends would include a couple girls in order to avoid that whole “which guy does she want to date?” guessing game that people sometimes play when they are extremely bored and see a girl with a bunch of guys.
Growing more awkward by the moment, the minutes slowly ticked by, one by one, until the movie’s start time was reached. Still no answer from Josiah, and no one had arrived that I recognized! I sent him another text. Finally, an answer! He had overslept! Something about falling asleep on his arms and having weird superhuman capabilities in a dream… He was extremely apologetic and promised he would be there as quickly as possible. When he arrived, there were no friends to be seen… I looked around in slight confusion. “Is anyone else coming?” The answer I’d been dreading was given. “No, everybody else is busy or doesn’t want to see this movie.” I laughed one of those less than surprised, slightly humored, “Ha!”s and stated that everyone on my end had expressed the same thing. Already late for the movie, I asked, “well what should we do now?” Josiah, always thinking on his feet asked, “Well, what other movie have you been wanting to see? We can hang out until it’s time for the next showing!” I scanned the board nervously, “Okay…hmmmm…well… I HAVE been wanting to see Defiance! But the next showing isn’t for another TWO HOURS!” Josiah smiled and shrugged, “That’s okay! We can get our tickets and then grab some dinner to kill time! Have you eaten?”
At this point I was spinning. Not only did no one else show up, but we were now talking about spending another TWO HOURS hanging out ALONE, going to DINNER just the TWO of us, and then seeing a movie BY OURSELVES!! It was almost too much for me to take in, but I tried to play it cool. After all, I didn’t get a weird stalker-vibe from Josiah. He didn’t smell funny, and I was sure, though I hadn’t been close enough to tell, but I suspected that he did indeed smell quite good in fact, and he seemed like a genuinely kind person. I was intrigued and had a strong desire to be his friend. Honest. At that time, I promise that ‘friends’ was the only thing on both of our minds. I just wanted to get to know him better. So, I nodded and said, “Okay, sure! We could go somewhere in the mall and just walk over!” Josiah approved of this idea. Since the mall is pretty much bare of any eateries, unless one wanted to make a meal of a cookie cake or order take-out from an ethnic man whose native country was NOT responsible for Chinese food but rather the chalupa, not labeling anyone in order to remain undescriminatory ;-), you were limited to one place, and one place only,…well, maybe two..well, okay… 3 ish, but one is a cafeteria and doesn’t count as a whole restaurant..so you had 2 and a half options, and I don’t eat buffalo wings no matter HOW wild they are, so opting against Mr. Wok and a series of vending machines and M&M encrusted cookies, we chose a place I hadn’t been in years—an American institution: Applebee’s.
Long story short, well the Applebee’s portion of the story anyway, we sat in a booth, I ordered the same thing as Josiah minus the chicken, I gave my lemon to him, we talked easily, I relaxed, confirmed what a neat guy Josiah was, decided I was glad I had agreed to come, and then the check came…all on one tab. She thought we were a couple. I was so embarrassed! But I couldn’t show it. I was apologetic and tried to give Josiah cash. He said “don’t worry about it. You can buy my ticket.” I tried to play it cool and shoved cash at him. “No, please! I actually have cash on me! Take advantage of it because I NEVER carry cash!” ….Somehow my logic made sense to me at the time…as it often does. Lord love him for not heading for the hills at the first sign of my spastic behavior. After leaving the restaurant, we made our way back to the theater, bought our tickets, and settled into our seats. The movie was great!-very well done…but I remember more about sitting next to Josiah than I probably do about the movie. It wasn’t that I was staring at him, but I was very aware of my surroundings. And…I thoroughly enjoyed being around him! I was having fun! When the movie ended, as they often do, we walked out to our cars. And then the awkward ‘Goodbye’ took place. Well, in my opinion it was awkward..but just from reading my words and how ‘awkward’ and ‘anxious’ and ‘nervous’ I say I felt, it’s a miracle that I didn’t malfunction or need rebooting. It was that awkward moment when you’re walking back to your cars and you don’t know where the other person is parked but you’re engaged in conversation and don’t know when to walk toward your own car…and are you supposed to hug like you would one of your girlfriends, or shake hands, or just…wave…or not say anything at all and just walk away? I didn’t learn the ‘goodbye’ protocol… but somehow I made it back to my car. It was a miracle. A downright, flipping miracle. I think I waved….probably….like a three year old…and then tripped.
ANYWAY, so as I was saying…two pages ago…today is the one year anniversary of the time that we first hung out on our own. And upon realizing this, we considered watching Defiance together…but then opted for that same Applebee’s instead. Long story short, well at least the Applebee’s portion, we sat in a booth, I gave my lemon to him, we talked easily, we both sat relaxed (though he was feeling a bit under the weather), I thanked God for this wonderful man, decided for the floppity-jillionth time that I was glad I’d agreed to marry him, and then the check came…all on one tab. He thought we were a couple. Well…he was right. Josiah is going to be my husband. Forever and always… For fun I dug in my purse for cash..and came up with a fist-full of coins..so I gave him a quarter in honor of the cash I threw at him a year ago. He smiled. I laughed. And so it was that an act of Defiance brought us together.
A corny ending, it’s true…but it just sounded so GOOD!
