Introductions

It was the spring of 2016, and Dominic met Kathleen at a wedding at Hope Chapel. They had med the previous weekend, but that doesn’t matter as much. She was accompanied by someone else at the time, who introduced them. After they hit it off in a nice conversation (he was dressed in a 3-piece suit, how could she not notice him?), he suddenly cut conversation short, and walked off. How bizarre.

Fast forward several months, Kathleen and her date didn’t work out. (But, said date is now happily married to a wonderful gal, and they have a charming baby boy, so that story ended well.) Not much longer after that ended, Dominic asked Kathleen out for a night of Swing Dancing, something they both enjoyed thoroughly. As it turned out being an entertaining evening, she hoped more such evenings would follow. But, they didn’t. Ha ha. She reasoned perhaps he didn’t think it was a good match, and that is fair.

So here we are, Fall of 2016. Kathleen was fulfilling a 14 year old dream of traveling to beloved Scotland, and Dominic was in Norway visiting his mother. Light conversation ensued, as internet connection allowed. Kathleen was indeed surprised but obviously didn’t mind. He wasn’t interested in that way but she supposed he could make a good friend.

Kathleen enrolls in Massage School, and things get interesting

It’s June of 2017, towards the middle of her education time at the Massage school, and Kathleen felt inadequate in providing therapeutic work for fear of hurting the client. Who better to call than Dominic? He was an uninterested acquaintance and it seemed likely that she couldn’t hurt him. “Of course,” he said. After she set up in the spare room at his house, she was doing the appropriate check in before a session, and it was in that conversation that she learned that Dominic had indeed been flirting with her at the aforementioned wedding!! You can imagine how that rather changed things in her mind, poor timing and all, as she was to practice therapeutic work in a minute or two. (Quite honestly, if I had not been so focused on just achieving the task at hand, this massage session would have been very awkward. But I did make note to follow up on this lead another time. ~K)

And, as you might assume correctly, this started their interests in each other. They became more official in Aug 2017. Dominic had invited Kathleen over to cook her a meal after her graduation. (I remember the day – one of the bigger accomplishments of my life at that time. After celebrating with my classmates, I headed over to his house, all dolled up. I laugh as I think about how unimpressed he seemed at my appearance, and casually made me a simple dinner. But I thought it was romantic that a man would cook for me. It was pretty nice. ~K)

A bit of Backstory

/Here are some details that Kathleen was unaware of during the last chapter:

At the original wedding, Dominic, being a gentleman – saw that he and Kathleen were enjoying their conversation and that her date was soon becoming ‘third wheel’, so he decided to end it. He was not going to be taking his friends date.

The reason he didn’t ask her out again was because he had been casually dating another lady at the time, and after the swing dancing trip he realized that he wasn’t the type to be dating two gals at once, so he opted to not pursue Kathleen at that time. (I remember driving one day, my heart heavy over relationships as I was interested in two different women, before I met Kathleen. I had asked God, which of these women would be the best choice? And he answered- Neither. I have someone better for you. But of course I didn’t listen and wasted a lot of time one someone else. ~D)

Also, when Kathleen came back from Scotland, she became involved in someone else for a bit of time there was unavailable for Dominic to check interest.

Kathleen:

Aug 2017. That was the start of so many things. I remember up until that point, I only stayed in a relationship for two months. About towards the end of that time I would have accumulated enough information to tell me if they were a good choice or not. And yes, even towards the two months of Dominic and I, I had started to consider leaving. But I had a feeling that told me not to, or that I would deeply regret it if I did. A feeling, or a soft voice deep inside that I had never noticed before with any other my other dating relationships. So, I said, we will give it one more month. And I am thankful I did. One month turned into 4 years. There was a lot I needed to grow through, to learn to trust. Even to this day I admire how patient Dominic was and still is with me. No, I told myself that I would date for only two years, and then if things didn’t progress well it was time to move on. But then 2020 hit, and I am very thankful that we stayed together. It took those 4 years for me to grow, to change, to be thankful, to trust – in myself and in Dominic. It wasn’t the route I wanted, but as always God has a much better plan. It was the time I needed. The time WE needed. I thought love was going to be a fun butterfly that would stir up my heart in song. I have come to understand that a more constant love, a more mature love, is more like standing on solid ground, knowing I am safe, accepted and cherished. And Dominic has become in a lot of ways my solid ground. He is my 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 man. What seems a long while ago, mom and dad encouraged me to make a list. And so I did. Fast forward meeting Dominic, and he matches 22 out of 23 items on the list, and that one item is not something I would want today anyways.

Dominic:

We started seriously talking after I was looking for someone to go to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 with me. Kathleen came along, and I remember being impressed that she managed to sneak 2 coco water, 2 snack bars, and a bag of Hershey’s Dark Chocolate kisses in her purse. Little did I know that this Hershey’s kiss bag would make several appearances throughout our early dating phase. Several times, either she or I would ask if the other one wanted a kiss for the road before parting ways – with me eventually giving Kathleen an actual kiss one night.

This was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We had our ups and downs, but who doesn’t – I learned to grow in areas I wasn’t aware of, and while the 4 years it took were long, I think it’s what we both needed. I know I did. Early on in our relationship, we spent a weekend camping at Cedar Breaks Park in Georgetown while I did a shakedown trip with an Airstream camper I was restoring for a friend. Other notable events included our Trip to Ireland for a friends’ wedding which I had the honor of officiating, lots of day trips, lots of swimming at Barton Springs, several out of state trips, and the dumpster fire of a vacation to Hot Springs, AR – which shall never be spoken of again.

The Proposal – and Complications

Before Christmas of 2020, the stars had aligned (and Kathleen had enough “98% days” as Dominic calls them), to where he got the ring, and started plans for actually proposing. Little did he (and Kathleen) know that it would take almost another 8 months to come to fruition. The conversation with her parents was pretty easy, they had been on board for quite some time. The ring arrived, check. But the appropriate “Special moment” timing was the tricky part. Kathleen doesn’t surprise easily, so I knew it would be tricky.

One of the proposal attempts (the most likely one) was randomly while we were out touring the Texas hill country, but that was thwarted by me accidentally leaving the ring back home. So after that, I always made sure it was with us (or on me) when we’d go out on adventures. Don’t want to waste the magical moment, you know.

After 214 days, Kathleen and I found ourselves at Cedar Breaks Park in Georgetown, where Kathleen had asked me for days to take her swimming. The skies were filled with thunderstorms all around us, but they kept passing by, with at most a light drizzle falling down on us. We went swimming for a bit, we sat around reminiscing about our 4 years, and then we sat in silence watching the beautiful sun setting between two storm clouds.

The moment was a bit dark, but it was also everything that was reflective of our relationship. Us, the storms, the beauty in the sunset – it wasn’t what I thought it would be, but it was perfectly us.