“I met someone this weekend.”
My friend Traci was being subjected to yet another call from my 24 year old single self about a man I had met.
Travis and I today…
“Where did you meet him?” she asked.
“At my cousin’s wedding in New Mexico.”
“Where does he live?”
“Well,” I said, “he works construction and kind of lives on the road. He travels for work and stays at his brother’s house in Missouri when they aren’t on a jobsite.”
“What does he look like?” she said.
I proceeded to describe him.
“Well, he’s about 5’10″, has a great smile, dark hair and blue eyes. His hair is long and curly and he wears it pulled back in a ponytail. He’s got quite a few ear piercings, tattoos and a stud in his tongue. I’m going to Indianapolis to see him in two weeks.”
“Let me get this straight,” she replied. ”You met “the one” and he’s a homeless guy with long hair, tattoos and piercings who you are flying to another state to visit???”
Thus began our whirlwind romance that, 13 years later, is still going strong.
Travis and I met on May 5, 2001, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at my cousin Doug’s wedding. They had previously worked together as bartenders in Dallas and had been friends for a number of years.
This is him, lower left corner…at the exact table he was sitting at when we met. 
When I first saw him, he was sitting at a table in the back yard with a bunch of his buddies. He was drinking a Corona (it was Cinco de Mayo after all) and wearing a black, buttoned down shirt…covered in pictures of colorful cocktails. He was laughing and telling stories. Loudly. His smile lit up the place and his stories had everyone laughing hysterically. My kind of guy.
Throughout the weekend, he asked me to spend time with him, brought me a gift, danced with me at the wedding and asked my mom for her permission to kiss me goodnight. We laughed and we talked and we laughed some more.
He said he’d call, and he did….before I even got home to Denver. We lived on the phone the next few weeks. I learned he had four brothers and liked to work outside and get dirty. I shared that I had four sisters and a brother, worked in an office and preferred to stay clean. He told me he loved crawfish, Pearl Jam, the Sooners and his mama. I told him I was a terrible housecleaner but I loved to cook and family was everything to me. We talked about our childhoods, our dreams and our shared love for Jesus. And we laughed…a lot.
The night we got engaged…
After dozens of hours on the phone, it was less than two weeks later when I saw him again. Within two months he had moved to Colorado and within 5 months we were engaged. Three months later, on January 20, 2001, we were married in front of God, our family and about 250 friends.
When people ask, “how do you know if he’s the one?” the answer is often, “when you know you just know”. Extremely annoying to a single person – but so true. When you know, you know.
I met my Travis. After all the false starts and stops and several times falling (hard) in and out of love, this time, it was real and easy and obvious. Without a doubt – he was the one for me.
It’s been 10 homes, 4 states, 4 babies, 3 dogs and 13 years since that day in New Mexico at my cousin’s wedding and I wouldn’t change a thing. Travis, I love you…you are my everything.
What about you? How did you know that your spouse was “the one”?
