love stories: stacy & chris

As I mentioned before, I started this series to document some of the greatest love stories floating around the world; first and foremost because they make me oh so happy, but also to instill hope in those of us whose love stories don't exist just yet.

So for today, I'd like for you all to meet Stacy. We bonded over being from the same area in Texas (Texas Forever heehee) and though we've never met, it kind of feels like she's an old friend. Her story makes me especially happy because it is so serendipitous and proves that fate does exist. I'll stop now because I don't want to spoil the story, but read on! I promise you'll walk away feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

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Hello to Allie’s beautiful readers!  I’m Stacy from Just Breathe, Stacy, and I’m so happy to be a part of this great series. 

I grew up loving romantic comedies then around the age of 22 began hating them because I finally realized they weren’t realistic.  Jump to age 28 when I was single and living in Dallas, Texas where whether people like to admit it or not, it is often frowned upon if you’re not at least planning your wedding by the time you graduate college. It’s just kind of what people do.  However, I was the proud rebel until the age of 25 but then I became lonely and really wanted to find the one. I had finally given up.

On my 28^th birthday, a dear friend gave me a card that encouraged me to say “yes” more often and get out of my comfort zone. Sooner rather than later, I had my first opportunity to say “yes.”

Last August, a friend who worked for the New York Yankees offered me a free trip to Chicago. I remember my first night in Chicago because it was so liberating – I was all by myself. I walked around Michigan Avenue, shopped at H&M and ended up at Pizzaria Due where I waited 45 minutes to get a table and ordered a personal deep dish pizza with a fun drink to enjoy by myself.

But by the third night, it was the last night of the series between the New York Yankees and the White Sox. So if I wanted to go to a game, I HAD to go to this game [Wednesday, August 3, 2011].  I decided to show up fashionably late, mostly to miss the crowds on the train.  As I sat on the train, clutching my purse and watching all of the people, I noticed two very attractive guys get on at the Lake stop. They sat down opposite to me. As we were coming to a stop on 35^th Street, the three of us stood and started towards the exit and one of them [Chris] said, “you know your team is going to lose.” 

(Side note:  I was wearing a Yankee shirt even though I promise you I’m a Texas Ranger supporter.)

I then went into a much too long diatribe about how I was just there visiting someone from the Yankees, that’s why I was wearing the shirt… etc. etc. To my surprise, they were still interested in talking to me after my rambling debut.

the night we met

When we approached the entrance to the stadium, there were a few awkward pauses, and I was surprised to see that I wasn’t the only one not ready to enter and find our separate seats.  We talked outside for probably another hour – consisting mostly of Chris asking me questions.

[He later told me I was fascinating to him because I answered every question the opposite of what he assumed.] 

Chris still makes fun of me because as we were finding our way into the ballpark, I asked to be his Facebook friend while he asked for my phone number. I’m such a social media weirdo that I just assumed this would be the end of our interaction and that it might be cool to have a new Internet buddy in Chi Town. But he won and got my number and actually offered to meet back up with me when I was ready to leave so that I’d have people to walk back to the subway station with because well, if you’ve ever been to the south side of Chicago … you know. 

I was ready to leave within about 30 minutes of the game and it turned out Chris and Tom were ready to leave within about 15 minutes. My phone wasn’t getting any reception [I knew because Facebook wouldn’t upload my pic!] so I became a little nervous and walked outside to try and get some service. When I did, I had several missed calls and texts from Chris. The most recent seemed urgent; Chris and Tom were leaving but he had been waiting on me. Since he hadn’t heard back, he was just going to leave. But he said that it was nice to meet me and was about to give me subway directions when I finally got my text to go through.

Chris stayed at the subway station for probably 15 minutes after his friends had left him to wait for some girl he barely knew. I walked up and he said,

“You have two choices.  A.  You get on this train and I will tell you exactly how to get back to your hotel. I’ll wish you the best. Or B.  you can take a chance and come out with me and I’ll show you around a fun part of Chicago where you can experience it more than the touristy parts and we can hang out with my friends.”

Whew.  I remember staring over the rails of the subway looking back at the Chicago skyline thinking to myself, “am I in a movie right now?”  I also thought back to my promise to myself to say YES more often. After a warning to Chris that I had a mace pen in my purse, I agreed to go and said yes.

Chris took me back to his ‘hood, Lakeview, where we picked up his sweet dog and walked around the city.  We never did end up going to a bar or hanging out with his friends. We just walked and talked and took in the beautiful city. I decided to call it a night after a couple of hours.  The cab showed up a little too soon but when it did, we hugged and agreed it was a fun night. The taxi door shut and  I was shuttled back to Michigan Avenue with a BIG smile on my face.

I waited two minutes, once I realized the cab driver was indeed going in the right direction, and took out my phone to text Chris. All rules or whatever games people like to play were out the window.  I had a great night and I wanted him to know. I had nothing to lose at this point so I said,  “can we keep in touch?”

He responded quickly with a “no,” but then a follow up text after a few minutes of me sweating and saying, “yes, of course!”

Over the next month, a texting relationship quickly turned into a phone relationship then escalated to a Skype relationship. One day I get a call at 3:00 a.m. from Chris asking what I was doing for Labor Day and that he had just booked a plane ticket to Dallas. Wow. Before I knew it, he was here for four days.  The second night he was there, we both knew how serious this was and we were fully committed. 

If you know Chris, you know that he makes decisions and acts on them. So a month later, Chris had quit his job, sold his apartment and was moving to Dallas. For us and our relationship, to say that we “just knew,” is an understatement. I never once had a little somebody in my head telling me to slow down or that this was a bad idea. It just always felt right. Even my family, who has always known me as the girl to always finds something wrong with a guy, found this erratic behavior in me to be somewhat normal. They felt that if I was this serious about a guy then it must be the real deal! 

We met August 3, 2011 and on August 3, 2012, Chris proposed. We’ve had our ups and downs like any relationship, but we’re so strong right now and I think that the key is that we’ve never ever played games with each other.  We’ve been 100% real the entire time. It would be too easy to say this has been the best year of my life.  It has been an intense and passionate year. I’ve learned more about myself than I ever thought possible and likewise for Chris. We’ve both found the person that completes and compliments us best. 

I’m 29 years old; I’m not 18 anymore. I’ve had many relationships and none have ever come close to this.  It sounds cliché but really with Chris, I just knew.  

{Thank you for sharing with us, Stacy!}