How we met

1991 Summer - flew to AZ from NM for the first Lollapalooza concert in PHX. We stayed a week with some friends of ours that happened to be roommates with Clint and his then girlfriend. In that time Clint and I maybe exchanged 2 words which were probably “Oh” and “cool.” He was very kind to us and made my friend and I mixed tapes of some really cool bands he had on CD.
I didn’t think much of him – thought he looked a little too skinny and maybe was a recovering drug addict. That was my first impression of him. His girlfriend got some vibe that I was trying to hit on her man. It was weird because like I said we hadn’t exchanged more than 2 words to each other.

1991 Winter – We drove to AZ for the Red Hot Chili Pepper and Pearl Jam concert. My friends had moved to a new apartment and Clint and his friends lived in the same complex. He was girlfriend-less and looking a bit meatier! We talked more and he seemed to be a really cool funny guy. I ended up liking his roommate more.

1992 Summer – My girlfriends and I moved to Tempe to start our new independent life the day after we graduated High School. Clint lived in a house with 5 other guys and it was pretty much the party house. So, of course we found ourselves there a lot. I was still seeing his roommate and he was a big jerk and in no time it was over. Clint was a super nice guy and all the girls liked him but they liked him more “as a friend” I just thought he was the sweetest guy around but of course at the time I didn’t think I deserved such a nice thing. So, I stayed away from him in that way. One day I finally had enough liquor in me to ask why he had never tried to kiss me. I was only surprised because all his other roommates had tried to kiss every girl that walked into their house. He made some remark about how I was a tease. I think I sobered up real quick because that freaked me out to be thought of something so lascivious. So, months passed and I had moved into a house just up the street from him and he would come over to get away from his noisy party house. We became good friends and hung out here and there. He started inviting me to eat chicken wings at Long Wongs (ten cent wing special!) and I kinda knew things were heading into a different direction and I didn’t want to go there for whatever reason. So, like the tease he accused me of being, I never met him for lunch that day and he waited for me all afternoon. After work I headed to the bar with another guy friend and the bar just happen to be across the street from where Clint was eating chicken wings. I felt like such an ass, but I waved a big wave like “hey – just having an underage beer with some friends.” When I got home my roommate told me how Clint had waited for me to get home and I never showed up. There was even a little note that he left for me.

Months later, he moved to Scottsdale and asked that nobody come over to their new house to party because they wanted a party free house. I stayed away for a few weeks but somehow I ended up with some friends and we had a great time of just hanging out in a nice quiet manner. Clint and I became close friends and we just started to get closer and closer. He finally found a job and stuck with it. We would spend all weekend together and do fun date stuff like going to the movies or eating ice cream together. It was really nice and sweet.

After a few months I became so paralyzed with fear of getting hurt or hurting him that I broke up with him and told him to leave me alone. (I blame it on hormones) He didn’t. He called every day still. I had an appointment with Planned Parenthood to get on the pill and was pretty close to canceling it because I wouldn’t be needing it anymore because I was single. I went anyway and filled out these forms that asked questions about how I was feeling – breast soreness was the biggest one that popped out at me. I had been feeling a little off a week or so before and we had bought 2 different pregnancy tests and the first one was iffy so I bought at second one and that one was plain NEGATIVE. So, I didn’t give much thought anymore. So, I’m sitting in the office waiting for my results and all I can think is “this sort of thing doesn’t happen to me. This is the sort of thing that happens to other girls, not me.” My results were positive and the biggest smile came over my face like I had hit the lottery. I was trying my best to act more ill fated like the nurse but I was so giddy with excitement. She asked me if I wanted any information on abortions, adoptions and healthcare. I took it all because I didn’t know what Clint was going to think about it all.

I drive to Clint’s work and mind you I hadn’t seen him in over a week and was a real witch with him on the phone when he did call. So, Clint gets out of work and sees me and just hangs his head down and I’m bouncing along side him and I just say, “we are going to have a baby.” His response was “is that the only reason why you came back?” I’m so shocked because in my mind I felt this peace come with the positive results, letting me know that everything was going to be just fine and this was all part of THE plan. I thought Clint would react in the same way initially. I told him how I thought this was a sign showing us that we were meant to be together. Within minutes we were talking marriage! I mean marriage! I thought we would live together try it out if it didn’t work- well we gave it a shot. I didn’t think he wanted to marry me just because I was pregnant. We call my mom and she blurts out, “there goes your life.” I was again flabbergasted – like why the heck wasn’t anyone seeing how great this was? I told her how I felt and that I was sorry she didn’t see it that way. A minute later she said, “Let me speak to my new son-in-law.”

3 months later we were married at the Little Chapel of Mesa (I think that is what it’s called – someone correct me if I am wrong)
8 months later Slade was born and was very much welcomed with open arms.

Clint said the moment he saw me he knew he wanted to marry me. That could explain the vibe his girlfriend got! He would always ask me to marry him when we were just friends. I never thought I would ever be a wife or a mother. I just never dreamt like that. I’m so very thankful how it all played out and also because we now have 12 years under our belts! 12 years!

I hope that everyone who reads this will share their story on their blog! Let me know in comments so I can come check it out!

Here is Clint's version of how we met that he wrote on his blog last month:
Love Like Ducks
08/07/2005 - 12 Years

13 Years Ago:

He: Blissfully jobless, soldier of the test lab army, the plasma pit professionals, living with 5 like minded cohorts and one old man, the 65 year old T-Bone. Country mouse in the City. Car - left in a parking lot somewhere, reverse not working, no longer needed, gas and repairs too expensive. 90’s socialist (slacker), friend of crusty punks, hippie chicks, wake and bakes, SHARP skins (the good guys, modern day super heroes combating racist dickheads everyday). Moving headlong into future goal of rail tramp, a life off the grid and apart of modern day consumerism. Deeply depressed, fighting depression with alcohol and losing.

She: Employee of Chicagies, struggling to get by, nickle and dimes, nickle and dimes, living with like minded cohort in tiny one room shack with black walls. Car – Toyota Tercel, dented and burnt, runs strong like a three legged frisbee catching dog. ½ hippie chick ½ raver, cute, cute as hell in Boston Red Sox baseball cap, cut-off jeans, tank top, and Chuck’s, nice legs, strong. Good person, happy and free, forgiver, forgave mother and others, friends with all.

Both: stuggle daily and party nightly, struggle to find money to attend concerts, the All concert at the Silver Dollar, Fugazi, Charlatans UK, struggle to find enough money to attend dance clubs, dance all night to PIL, Beastie Boys, Jane’s Addiction, Pailhead, Stone Roses, etc…..

Good friends, He secretly loved her, secretly longed to touch her, to shove aside the painstaking talks about bands and music and talk about her, just about her, her life, her dreams, her school, her grandma’s house of adobe and brick next to an irrigation canal, her uncle’s truck that carried her and her cousins on its bumper along dirt roads shadily twisting amongst beautiful pecan trees, her brother’s bb guns and their scarring potential, their holiday tradition of wrapping the turkey in burlap and cooking it in a hole dug into the tierra de Nuevo Mexico, the sides of mashed potatoes, beans, menudo, and tortillas. Talk of her, know her.

That’s it, that’s how we started. Nice starting point, like starting a 10k after a night of binge drinking and bad burritos. Like heading to Mexico with 10 plasma dollars in a car owned and operated by a driver with questionable intent. But the starting point is minor, funny to look at, marvel at, poke at like a caged bobcat caught late at night by a group of drunken farmers, but negligible, interesting yes, considerable no.

No, no, no, see, our love could have been realized at college, an ivy-league school with proud parents looking on approvingly, nudging, or at work, leaning on slivered hoes talking over rows of cotton as the foreman with elbow firmly planted on dented hood of white truck whiped his sweaty brow. Our love could have birthed anywhere at anytime, it was and remains undeniable, inevitable. We would have found each other, our planes on extended layover and we, while ordering beer to pass the time would have looked at each other and knew, knew three kids, knew air conditioners in need of recharging, knew phoned in prescriptions, knew homebirths, knew knitted hats.

We would have looked at each other and instantaneously realized, yes, yes, that we we’re created, birthed in doctor’s offices and in hospitals, lived through shouting parents, endless pinatas, picnics after long drives, lived through raked leaves, mowed lawns, stifling churches with their glaring teachers, lived through flat tires on rutted roads, through rock climbings, crowded locker rooms, first kisses and the gum thereafter, lived through all these things and more just for this, for us. We would have known.

And now, 12 years later, we are here, here, anywhere. Happily married and I, I still want to talk to her, I still want to know her, to talk of her, and we, we still love each other, we will love each other, we will love each other like ducks. We will grow old and retire and I will still want to know her, we will drive happy camper drives to Bouse and collect rocks, we will visit grandchildren and offer them hot glue gun artifacts with wiggly eyes and yarn, we will fart as we walk by children in front of tv’s and chuckle to ourselves. Until one day, I will take her wrinkled hand with purple veins and swollen knuckles, and I will ask her to dance and we will dance, we will dance to PIL, to Elliott Smith and we will drink and laugh and laugh and laugh and our kidneys will fail and our hearts will attack and we will laugh and laugh and my knees will buckle and we will smile at our life, our life as one, and we will fall down and lie side by side and I will still want to know her and our eyes will close and with her hand held in mine she will tell me all without moving lips and I will listen and as the grains of dirt splash on the lacquered oak I will know, I will know, I will know her.