A St. Patrick's Day Anniversary

With Chris in Dallas, I was hanging out with friends and didn't read his text until after he had gone to bed.

"Happy 5th anniversary of the best night that I barely remember. I love you and am so happy I was able to type your number in correctly."

This actually melted my heart, because it's a reminder of how much my life has changed, for the better, because of a St. Patrick's Day night out years before. Never would I have predicted that five years later I'd be married to that man and have a second child on the way.

It was a typical St. Patrick's Day, with um, a lot of beer, and I couldn't tell if the flirtations of the handsome friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend was a product of his alcohol consumption or not. We had a fabulous night hanging out with friends, flirting and persevering with conversation above the impossibly loud music. The more I talked to him, the more I liked him. But then bar closing was approaching, members of our group began to get tired and trickle out, and my ride home was ready to call it a night. To spare my own rising hopes, instead of agreeing to see him the next day, I offered him my number, which he drunkenly typed directly into his cell phone. If he called, that is if he remembered me, I told him, then we could talk about going out together.

But he did remember. Well, mostly. He had entered my number in under "K," and had to ask the friend he was staying with my name and then was told it was "Kristen." But the important part is he called. And we did go out the night after St. Patrick's Day and then he returned to school in Duluth the next day. But he called again when he got home. And again the next day. And the next for two weeks until we saw each other again.

I've often wondered if the outcome of our lives could have been the same if things had gone differently that night. If we hadn't crossed paths then, maybe we would have at a mutual friend's party down the road. But when would that have actually been? If he hadn't gotten my number, he could have tracked it down eventually through friends of friends. But would he have? Or what if his lack of clear recollections from the night before had shot his confidence to call? I don't know if I would call it fate, or just the timing being right, but a series of seemingly in consequent circumstances fell into place to let a relationship take hold.

So yes, Chris remembered that night, and, yes, he typed my number in correctly. And as they say, the rest is history.