My friend Cynthia would like you all to know that she gets the credit for seeing the writing on the wall before I did. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY before I did, she wants me to add.

For months before anything actually happened between Tim and me, Cynthia had been accusing me of liking him. Accusing, I say, because he was not my type. Something I repeated over and over. He was (and is) older than me, by 8 years. He had long hair and played drums in a band. The guys I dated weren't anything like that description. Think fraternities. Think clean cut, not quite preppy type guys. They listened to music at parties and concerts, they didn't play it. Because we all know what musicians are like. ;)

I'd come home to the apartment I shared with Cynthia and her soon to be husband, tell her about my day and she'd squeal "you like him!" which somehow evolved into "you LIKE him" and then the inevitable "Oh my God, you're in LOVE WITH HIM!" Emphatically denied each time and each time followed with "he's not even my type."

One day she put her hands on her hips and said, "do we need to review where 'your type' has gotten you so far?" My only answer was of the "besides, he's not into me" variety.

Turns out I was wrong. All the way around, completely wrong.

I liked him, I loved him and he'd already fallen for me. Our jokes in the office had led us down a path we hadn't even seen and then suddenly there it was.

On Oct 6, 1997 I was getting ready for an out of state trip to my cousin's wedding, so I stayed late at work. He stayed too, and before he left he hugged me. The next day, more work to do before leaving, I stayed again. He stayed too.

I was standing at the filing cabinets, putting away a monster stack of files. He had been sitting at his desk, but then got up and walked over to me. As he leaned in, I started to panic a bit but the kiss erased all rational thought from my brain. My knees, previously unshaken when it came to kisses (and there had been some good ones prior to him) turned to jello.

When the kiss was over, I walked over to my desk, sat down and tried to collect myself. When I could walk again, I walked over to him (not knowing he was freaking out) and kissed him within an inch of his life.

There was no first date, no "will you go to dinner with me" but a conversation about how we'd see each other outside of work, etc. We skipped right into the relationship, except that the next day I had to leave for another state and would be gone a WEEK. The agony!

I came back from that trip, and we've been together ever since.