This morning, I did the math and realized that Scotty and I have been together for 19 years as of today (for a minute I worried that we missed the 20th Anniversary, so I was relieved that it's only 19).
Let me tell you how it all began...
The First Begining
Our relationship has more than one beginning. The first beginning was when I was 14 years old. Scotty and I went to the same church, but we never really interacted. He was two years older than me.
One day for a youth activity we were playing games out on the lawn of the church. We played "human knot" where you stand in a circle, everyone grabs two random hands in the middle, and then you have to work together to untangle yourselves without letting go.
Scotty grabbed my hand.
It meant nothing to him, but for me - it is what brought him to my attention.
That night I wrote in my journal that I was going to marry Scotty.
The Second Beginning
Several months passed after the "human knot" incident. During that time, my crush on Scotty grew big time. I confided in some friends at church that I liked him. I never thought anything would actually come of it - for me it was just really fun to crush on an older boy. I didn't know Scotty very well, and I just assumed he had a girlfriend. But oh! What a fun challenge it was to think of ways to try and talk to him or to just conveniently be where he was. My best friend lived really close to Scotty, so when I walked to her house, I would always go out of my way to walk past Scotty's house.
(Spoiler alert: my best friend ended up marrying Scotty's step-brother, so walking past his house brought multiple results).
On the day before Valentine's Day when I was 15, I dragged a friend of mine from to Scotty's house to give him a Valentine. It was just a paper Valentine with a sucker attached to it. My friend and I were always jokingly asking Scotty if we could drive his car. The Valentine had a picture of a car, and it said, "Valentine, you drive me crazy!" (We still have the valentine).
The next morning, I went out on my front porch and found one of those gas station roses wrapped tightly in a cellophane tube (do these things still exist?)
I picked it up, and turned it over to see a message written in Sharpie:
To: Brittany
From: Scotty
I'm sure you can imagine the reaction of 15-year-old Britt.
(I was freaking out in the best of ways).
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Nineteen years later, I am blessed to still share February 14th (and all the other days of the year) with Scotty. Those teenagers who swapped valentines seem like completely different people from a completely different lifetime, but I am so grateful that Scotty and I have stretched, changed, and grown into two people who still love each other.
(We don't look anything like this anymore!)
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