How I Met Your Father

Perhaps our lives could be made into a mini-series; it would surely end better than the Charlie Sheen saga. This entry has been a long time coming, but I want to get the story perfect and didn't know where to start.

I moved to Indianapolis in 2005 with a good friend from my college days. Indy is a great town with tons of things to do. One of our favorite things to do was go country line dancing and two stepping on Friday nights at the local gay bar. No snickering from the peanut gallery! We would always stand over on the edge of the dance floor and watch everyone twist and spin around the dance floor never actually dancing ourselves. Every once in a while you would find me trying to dance, but it was usually too late in the evening for acquiring any additional skills.

We had been frequenting our place for a year when I took notice of an extremely graceful dancer being spun around the dance floor like gravity didn't exist. I couldn't take my eyes off of him, but didn't know what to say to him. I started calling him my "boyfriend" even though I didn't even know his name. I am the first to admit that is major stalker-ish, but what he didn't know would never hurt him. I would see this amazing dancer every week. This went on for way too long, and one day he disappeared.

My "quasi boyfriend" was gone all summer. By this time I had started taking dancing lessons and was moving and shaking on the dance floor on my own. I had not thought about him in quite some time, and then out of the blue there he was. I grabbed my roommate and told him tonight is the night I am going to talk to him. But what on Earth would I say. "Hello" wouldn't be good enough. I had to be prepared. I sat and watched the dancing most of the night, and between songs he was standing about five feet to my right. I finally worked up the courage to get off my ass, and as I was jumping off the stool to go talk to him... he started walking towards me.

We chatted about nothing of which I can remember. Shortly after we started talking my roommate wanted to move down the street to another place. I was not ready to leave but was at the mercy of someone else's driving that night. I gave my number to the cute little dancer and conveniently dropped the hint that we were changing venues. Fifteen minutes later at the new place and over my shoulder was Douglas. We talked for a bit longer and then made plans to meet for dinner.

We were both super busy in the beginning. He was working more than one job, and living on the north side. I was living on the south side and working on the north side spending hours in traffic everyday, but we made it work for us. We would meet in the middle for dinner and hang out all weekend. We fell hard and fast for each other... the timing was perfect.

On July 4th 2008 we went downtown to watch fireworks. After the fireworks were over, we tried to leave the parking garage. As soon as we pulled out of our space traffic was gridlocked. We had to sit for over an hour before the top floor was empty and then our level could exit. What could have been a very stressful situation for anyone turned into one of the best evenings of my life. We sat and talked the entire time and totally forgot where we were. At that moment I knew he was the one.

One month later... Douglas moved to India. Talk about a curveball. When I first heard the news I was in shock; then I said "have fun, I am not moving." We Skyped daily and ran up the phone bill with international calls. We made plans to meet in Paris for Christmas. Fast forward four months I am meeting Douglas in Charlotte for a conference and interviewing for a job in India in the stairwell of the Westin very late at night. We had a great few days before heading back home (him to India and me to Indianapolis), and by the time I was back to Indianapolis I got a new job and was moving to India.

The scariest thing I have ever done was book that one-way ticket from Paris to Delhi. That day I had two tickets booked: one to Indiana and the other to India. I had never been outside the US, and Douglas and I had never even lived together. I knew it was either going to work perfectly or end miserably. Fast forward three happy years in Delhi and we are married in a handful of states, and adding to our family.

-Chad-