I was curious what the very first picture of Jon and I would look like. We met on my first week of dental school. We were at the beach for a frosh event. I was sitting on a big blanket chatting, and I realized I was kind of leaning back against someone chatting in another circle of people. We both looked behind us at the same time. It was not love at first sight, but I definitely felt so calm and peaceful to be sitting beside him, even though we weren't talking to each other. That day at the beach was early September 2007. I wonder if there is a picture of the crowd of us at the beach that day. I've never seen one.
What I did find on my facebook page is a couple pictures from late September 2007 of Jon and I with my sister. She came to visit me in Halifax and attend a party at the Tupper building on the Dal campus. Jon and I had maybe gone on a few dates by then, but in a very old-fashioned way that maybe is not common anymore. He would call me and ask me to do a specific thing (like a concert or coffee or a movie). He would pick me up, we would go, and then he would drop me off at my apartment. We were basically just friends. Except sometime in the fall/winter of 2007 I fell in love with him.
This is what Jon was into in the winter of 2007: going on dates with me once or twice a week, indefinitely. This is what I was into: daily phone calls by him to me and also him accompanying me to the grocery store to help me carry stuff just because he wanted to. I was very specific, and those things were absolute minimums for me. And he said no. He had just been in a 10-year relationship that ended in a rough way. He wanted to just focus on himself. He was interested in continuing to go on casual dates. Casual dates were the last thing I wanted with him.
I was pretty in love with him. And he hadn't hurt me at all. He hadn't let our relationship become very deep or intimate, and so it allowed me to save face when he ended what little casual thing we had in December 2007. We still saw each other all the time. He lived in a big apartment with one of his best friends from home and also his friend's little sister, who was my best friend in dental school. So we saw each other most weekends and also most school days.
I never straight out told people how I felt about him, but some people knew. My best friends Jenny and Shannon were visiting me and we ran into Jon. We talked to him for two seconds, but I think they knew. And probably my sister knew. As for his friends, he told me years later that his friend always felt we weren't done.
In the summer of 2008 I worked in the anatomy lab with Jon's best friend Tim (the best man in our wedding). And I think he knew we were right for each other. I always felt so strongly inside that I just wanted what was right for Jon. I felt like I should just be grateful to be in his life at all, friends with his friends and him. He definitely draws good warm people to him.
In the spring of 2009 Jon showed up at my apartment (he called first) with a lamp that he heard I was in need of. And he was all in. Because I had secretly been all in for 1.5 years, I was thrilled. He was ready to do the daily phone calls and go to the grocery store with me. He would buy groceries and bring them to my apartment and make me supper. He would do my dishes that were in the sink when he showed up. He would leave me notes to meet him for coffee at the place across from my apartment. We started doing laundry together, working out together, studying together. One time I was walking down Morris Street in Halifax to meet him at the Wired Monk for coffee. And I was waiting for me at the corner wearing a wooly sweater, looking amazing. And I watched as a dog and it's owner approached the corner, and he got down and pet the dog and chatted with the stranger. And then he saw me, and he was so happy to see me, and he drew me right in to his moment on that corner. That moment on the corner is for sure the moment I knew I wanted to be in his presence forever. And each day with him, I always think that if it ended tomorrow, I would be SO lucky to have spent all these days with him. The last picture was taken in May of 2009 at Jon's family cabin on PEI. Jon wanted me to meet his Dad. By then we were both completely sure.
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