The Day We Met | A Biography

Saturday, November 4, 2017

Personal Picture from Saturday, April 18, 2020. Our most recent picture! 

It was my 22nd birthday, and, honestly... I was PISSED.  I lived in Texas with my parents, in an absolutely stunning little neighborhood just southwest of Austin proper.  Lake Travis was minutes away, walking.  I held my dream job at Lilly Pulitzer at the Domain.  But I only had 1 friend. Everyone else was in Illinois, Michigan, or off at schools around the country And really, she was a shitty friend.  Libby had always been all. about. Libby.  Which is fine. To each their own... ya know? 

Libby, however, had promised to make my birthday amazing.  We'd go down to Rainey Street and get a bunch of free drinks and party the night away.  Awesome! Right up my alley, this was going to be a perfect birthday.  

Enter Nate.  Libby gets a text from an ex-boyfriend, Nate, about two weeks before my birthday.  Nate has a girlfriend at this time, but *swears* he'll leave her if Libby comes up to the middle of BFE Oklahoma on the weekend of my birthday to visit him at the Air Force Base he's stationed at.  

So what does Libby do? Of course she tells him that it's her friend's birthday and she can't make it that weekend, might another weekend work? 

PSYCH. No, Libby drops me like a hot potato and says, "Of course, Nate. Anything for you, Nate," apparently forgetting her prior obligations.  Whatever. Like I said, Libby is all about Libby, and I knew this from the start.  

Fast forward to five before my birthday.  

"Hey... Tricia! Do you want to come with me to Oklahoma this weekend? Nate has a cute roommate I think you should meet!" says Libby, still oblivious to the fact that she's forgotten my birthday. 

"Honestly, Lib... It's my birthday and I don't really feel like spending it with my parents and we were supposed to hangout anyways, so sure. Whatever. Why not. Let's go to Oklahoma. And this dude better actually be cute..." I respond, a bit dejectedly.  

Little did I know, that birthday would be one of the most amazing birthdays of my life.  

I would meet my soulmate.  My better half.  My best friend and my whole entire heart.  

He just wasn't the guy Libby set me up with.  

We arrive in Oklahoma, and Libby's new.old boytoy announces that we'll go to Drop Night, when pilots get their first assignments.  We would meet his roommate, Charlie, there.  Cool.

We go to drop night.  We meet Charlie.  Charlie is perfectly nice, a pilot in the Air Force, smart, and funny.  Total package right?? 

Wrong.  

So Wrong. 

There. Was. NO. Chemistry.  

We struggle through the night's small talk quota and eventually get drunk and fall asleep back at the house.  

The next day, Nate and Charlie invite some friends over to play drinking games for my birthday.  It was so nice of them to do that, and I couldn't be happier that they did.  I would meet Joe, soon.  

Libby, Nate, Charlie, Sean, Jasmyn, Prox, and I are all hanging out around a fire outside in the cool November air, bundled up to high heavens to play Beer Darts.  If you havent played it, you should. 

At this point you're probably asking... Where is her man???? Why isn't he here sweeping her off her feet yet??

On round three or four of Beer Darts, a man walks in.  In a grey hoodie with the Air Force lightning strike on it and jeans hiding black Justin Ropers underneath, Joe Corso struts through the door to the backyard. 

"Hey, y'all," he says, scanning the room.  His eyes land on me, and he extends his hand, taking mine to shake. 

"I'm Joe, nice to meet you," he drawled, making eye contact with me for the first time.  Let me tell you, I've never seen blue eyes like his. This was the single most perfect human I had ever been blessed enough to encounter. It was a hopeless case for me right away.

Then, the man IGNORES ME for the remainder of the day, and in doing-so, secures my heart.

As I'm on my way out the door the next day to head home to Texas in the wake of my failed attempts at flirting with him, I get a text... 

It's Joe.

When I got home that night, the first thing I told Mama was that I'd finally found him.  The man I was going to marry.  And boy, am I glad I was right.  

Author's Note: 

I wrote this story today because I've been thinking about that night a lot lately.  I am so grateful that Libby was an awful friend.  She's been cut our of our lives for about 6 months now, and it's so much healthier for me in general, but I'll never stop thanking God that he sent me up here with Libby that weekend.  It was hard to write this story because nothing will ever feel as important as that day felt and it's almost impossible to convey that in writing.  It was such a cluster of weird events that led to me and Joe meeting, and I couldn't possibly fit everything in under 1000 words.  It would take an entire novel to adequately describe that day.  I hope one day I can write that novel and do it justice.  

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