I get asked about Carl and my story a lot. Well, not a lot… But it’s been asked of me numerous times. So here it is. The official unofficial edited for time and formatted to fit your computer screen story of when Kat met Carl.
In 2000, I found him on HotOrNot.com while aimlessly clicking through pictures with some friends at a sleepover. His photograph stopped me – maybe it was the blue shirt or the angsty hair… But I took notice right away. I selected him as a potential match for me. I didn’t really expect him to request a match back, seeing as it was the interwebs and “way back then” this kind of site was weird and new.
He matched me back. Lots of giddy, heart-fluttery goodness was felt as we started to communicate. Quickish messages on the site turned to lengthy emails back and forth about nearly any topic you can think of. Messages got longer and longer. Excitement to hear from each other grew.
As happens… Life got in the way and messages were less frequent. Then MySpace was invented. I imported my email contacts and guess who appeared! A year had passed but we excitedly got back to communications immediately. School and life and relationships made communication dwindle again. Then Facebook was invented and once again I found Carl in the magical interwebs. Once again we were beyond ecstatic to hear form each other.
In a letter sent almost five years ago, Carl admitted he had feelings for me and that they haven’t ever really gone away. The distance between us scared me, so I chose to ignore his outburst. I figured the relationship had been romanticized a bit through letters and long phone calls, so there was no reason to give it any real merit.
In 2008, we finally met. We spent four days together that were horribly confusing but also incredibly blissful. There was that spark. That connection. On his last day there, we held hands and giggled a lot. We kissed at the airport and both of us admit to feeling like we were hit over the head with a ton of bricks. It was dizzying. It was… that ‘it’ moment.
We were scared. We weren’t ready. So we ignored these feelings. We both did. And two years later, we couldn’t ignore it anymore. Carl, always the more upfront of the two of us, broke his silence first. A Hoover Dam of emotions came pouring out of the both of us for the next few months. Lots of happy tears and confusing nights… And then we agreed.
There is no one in this world we would rather be with. What were we waiting for?
So we leapt.
