PCOS to Parenthood - Part 3

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In February 2005, I had a profile on Yahoo Personals. In the past, I hadn’t really pursued relationships with anyone I had met, and most had become either friendly acquaintances, or just friends. I was in a very toxic relationship that was off-and-on for a couple of years (not the same as my high school relationship), and was looking for an out. I was lonely and felt used by that person and I knew I wanted to find someone that would hold a level of respect for me that didn’t include using my family and me for money and other luxuries. I had decided to spruce up my profile and just let it be for a little while. I met some good people, but wasn’t really looking for a serious relationship (hey, I’m being honest). All of a sudden, there was an “ice breaker” in my email, which was a free pre-worded sentence that you could send to someone you wanted to talk to more after viewing their profile. It was from a person who didn’t have a picture in his profile, which to me was a HUGE no-no. But, for some reason I’ll never know, I decided to read his interests and what he was looking for. He had mentioned movies, which was a HUGE plus in my book since I’m an avid moviegoer myself. He sounded intelligent and he had my four requirements – taller than me, older than me, a job (so I wouldn’t have to give him money all the time) and a car (so I didn’t have to drive him everywhere). I sent him an ice-breaker back, and then got an actual message from him. I decided to fork over the $20 to get the ability to message him back. Pretty soon, we were talking online in real time and 3 weeks later, he asked me out on my first real date…ever. His name was Jake and it was the best date I could’ve ever asked for as my first. He even brought me purple carnations (my favorite color, and because he couldn’t find purple roses after calling all the florists he could think of).

After 6 months of dating, Jake and I decided to take a weekend and go down to Monterey for our 6 month anniversary. We both love the beach and he hadn’t been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in a really long time. We had talked about marriage and looked at rings, and I knew a proposal was coming, but didn’t know when. We walked to the beach after checking into our B&B and ended up at a park called Lovers Point with a rock formation that shoots out into the ocean. He decided he wanted to “hike” the rocks and I decided “Hey why not”. By the time we got to the end, I had twisted my ankle a tiny bit and needed to sit down. He sat next to me, put his arm around me and said “Do you know how much I love you?” I said “I’m sure I have an idea, but you can tell me again if you want” ;) He began to tell me how lost he was before we met and how I brought him such happiness and love that he never knew he could have with someone. As he was talking, he pulled out a small black box from his camera bag and opened it. All I could do was cry. Finally he said “Will you marry me?” and through my tears and disbelief that this was actually happening, I said “yes”. As we walked the trail from the park to the aquarium, I began to realize that in the 6 months Jake had been in my life, I had eliminated the toxic people in my life, I had a stable job, was going back to college, we were in the process of moving in together with 3 kittens we had just adopted/rescued, and my relationship with my parents was vastly improving. He was the one who was there for me while I rebuilt my life, but wasn’t willing to solve my problems or rebuild my life for me. He allowed me to be the person I wanted to without doing anything but being there. I was going to marry Jake, the first MAN I had ever loved.