Tuesday, July 2, 2013

The Story Behind the Picture



This is one of my favorite pictures. It's a very young Mike pretending to kiss a very young, oblivious me (with horrible hair). This was taken my sophomore year, and there's just so much story behind it. I'd had a huge crush on Mike all year, but I knew he wasn't interested in me (other than flirting with me to annoy my brother). My brother was directing "Freaky Friday" for his dramatic productions class, and to my delight, he'd asked Mike to be one of the cops in the scene with the crazy phone conversation (you know which one I'm talking about). Mike has an amazing sense of comedic timing, and from the first rehearsal, nobody could keep from laughing during that scene. The whole play was just awesome and hilarious. Unfortunately, Mike missed a rehearsal (or two), and my brother was already annoyed at him so he found someone else to do the part.
I brought a disposable camera to one of the first rehearsals and took pictures with everyone there. My friend Ryan snapped this picture, and neither he nor Mike let on that Mike was doing anything other than sitting beside me, smiling at the camera (a feat that I now know he is incapable of accomplishing). Except afterwards Mike said (in what I now know as normal Mike-paranoia), "Hey, don't show that picture to anyone. I could get socialed for it." I was surprised and delighted when I got my film developed. 
We drifted apart after this and barely spoke for a couple years. But then we started hanging out again, and eventually started dating. Now, more than ten years later, we're getting ready to celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary. Looking at this picture, I still remember the flutters I would get in my stomach every time I saw him. And now I get even bigger flutters when I think about the fact that he is all mine forever and always. How in the world did I get lucky enough to end up with the coolest, funniest guy I've ever met?