togetherness

so after that, we dated and things moved quickly in our relationship.  in fact, he moved in with me within 6 months.  i had moved out of the hawkins street house and into my very own teeny tiny one-bedroom apartment.  there was barely any room to turn around in it, but i loved it.  it was mine.  i had always had roommates and was eager to have things go specifically how i intended.  for instance, if i emptied the trash can, it would still be empty when i came home from class.  or when bought a carton of orange juice, but didn't want to drink it for a week, it would still be unopened when i finally decided to take the vitamin c plunge.  i loved living on my own.  it was simple.  just me and my madde.   

then, he proposed to me.  it was an especially unromantic moment on our way back to murfreesboro after a visit with the family in chattanooga.  he pulled right over in a dentist's office parking lot as the sun was going down and presented me with the most beautiful ring i had ever seen.  despite the proposal, the ring was romantic.  his mom had given him her first set of wedding bands to give to me.   (she had moved up in the world of diamonds . . . on to bigger and better things.)  i never saw what those rings looked like, but apparently they were not my style.  so, he took the rings to a jeweler where he saw a beautiful antique engagement ring in the window and asked the guy if he could melt his mom's rings and place the diamonds in a setting that perfectly mimicked the antique.  the story goes that it took the jeweler several times before it finally came out correctly.  but when he finally achieved the goal, the result was stunning.  i had never owned a real diamond and suddenly i had this nice big one amongst several tiny ones sitting right there on my finger.  i said yes and didn't take my eyes off of my hand for at least a week straight.

after that, we figured it was okay to live in sin because we were engaged and in our hearts, we were already married.  we just lacked the piece of paper.  plus we were spending so much time together, that it made sense economically to just narrow our lives down to one place.  we told our mothers and they hated this idea, but my mom didn't go too crazy as i agreed to at least graduate from college before i took my vows.  so, this was sort of a compromise.  it was really full speed ahead at that point.  

in our full speed couple life, we sat down to have a slow moment and watch the history channel one night and some band-of-brothers type show came on about vietnam or world war two and the continuous theme was camaraderie between the men.  i admit, it was really cool to hear those guys talk about each other like they were family.  they had experienced something together that no one else could ever understand.  anyway, jeff turned to me and said, i think i'll join the military.  SCREEEEEEECH!  someone must've pulled the needle off of the record, because i swear i just heard my fiance tell me that he wants to join the military!  say what?  let me preface this whole thing by saying that i had already picked up my peace corps application and was giving serious thought to applying after i received my degree . . .in sociology and anthropology and women's studies because i was a peace-corps joining kind of lady  . . . .the kind that studied anthropology because it was going to be super cool to travel the world and hang out with various natives of various lands while digging trenches so that they could have a clean water supply!   and now you, my disheveled hippyesque fiance, you want to grab a gun and go to war? this caused quite an uproar!  and his mother . . .oh god bless her!  if you think having your 20 year old baby move into a cramped apartment with a lady 3 years older than him upset her, you can imagine what the thought of this did for her nerves.  she cried and cried and was so worried that he'd get hurt or die or ruin his life.  but he didn't care what we wanted.  he went the very next day to the army recruitment office and somehow the air force got a hold of him and within less than two months, i finished school and we were packing up the smallest uhaul we could find and moving to texas where he would do his tech-school training.  i had come around and gotten on board with the whole idea because the recruiter kept telling me over and over that we could travel the world.

so, we got to texas.  wichita falls, tx . . .one of the craziest places i've ever been.  he was set to leave for 7ish weeks of basic training, but after that, he'd live in wichita falls for a few months for his school.  the idea was that it would be nice for me to be in one set place for 6 months instead of 2 months at home with the folks and then 3 or 4 with him before our first assignment.  we had two weeks of togetherness in texas before he took the train to san antonio.  in that two weeks, we rented an apartment, i found a job, jeff turned 21, and in our full-on fashion . . .in less than a year after we had met, we ran over to the courthouse and got married.