My Great Love, Part 1

It was a cool, Spring morning on May 11, 2006 and I was off to my first day at my very first Monday-Friday, full-time job. I was 19 years old and felt like I was finally a grown up for merely having consistent work hours. Even though it was only a factory that built computer parts, I felt like it was a good start to making money and knowing how to plan my life and social schedule. Up until this point I was working all weekend, every weekend and didn’t have a social life to stand on. I finally had some freedom to look forward to. As the end of my first day came to a close, I walked out the back door of the factory and noticed the shipping department was still there. I suppose this made sense as most of the workers started work at 7am and they came in 2 hours later. As I walked past, I noticed this man standing in this “hallway” wearing a black Guiness hat, backwards, with a green polo and khaki pants just watching myself and this beautiful blonde next to me walk by. My heart skipped a beat until I realized “he’s probably looking at her”.

Exactly one week later, I had my feet on the ground and felt like I knew what I was doing. The bell rang and the first shift workers were leaving for the day. I moved to the front row to help another worker load her parts so we could get the big order out the door that day. I had my head phones on, listening to Rooney and that man that I thought was watching the other girl leave the week prior was walking up to me. As my heart began to flutter, the stranger asked me for my name. Stunned that he was standing in front of me, I relied “I’m sorry, are you talking to me?” Because, clearly this handsome man couldn’t be asking me, but the gorgeous blonde wasn’t sitting next to me. After I told him, he walked away. Once the shock left my face, I turned to my co-worker and asked “he didn’t tell me his name, did he?”

Not knowing this mystery man’s name, I started asking. Since no one knew his name, we nicknamed him “backwards hat guy”. I found myself getting anxious each time his break bell would ring, anticipating him walk by and catching his eye. Finally, my manager told me his name : Chris Whitcomb. I started to find more out about this guy. He was 36 (yes, 17 years older than I was), had a little girl that was an adorable little blonde and was previously divorced. As I mulled over the idea that he was 17 years older, I panicked and began to try to avoid him.

Now, 2006 was kind of a hard year for my family as we had lost 1 friend to stroke and 2 to heart attacks. I was close to each one of these men and I realized how short life was. It wasn’t until August that I began to pine over how I could take back my rejection of his first request for a date over Memorial Day weekend. A friend of mine took her lunch when he took his break and she gave him my number. We talked for a few hours for about a week and then finally, after spending a day at the water park with my nephew for his birthday, I gave him a call and asked him to come over to watch a movie. He listened to me for 7 hours ramble on about God knows what because I was so nervous. It was a good first date and I was excited that he wanted to see me the next day.

I suppose our first “official” date was on August 13, 2006. He picked me up on his motorcycle and we went to Starbucks. Sitting on the patio, under the stars, I got to know Chris a little more and was already intrigued by this man who was married twice before and had two children; Josie was 4 at the time and Christopher had just turned 15. He was in the Navy for 8 years where he was a cryptologist, keeping the machines working so they could intercept terrorist transcripts. As we ended our night, he dropped me off and we had our first kiss, it was like I closed my eyes and was suddenly in the movie “The Notebook”. This hopeless romantic was hooked.

©2013 Josephiney Photography