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Becoming Mrs. Shaffer

I was on my way to get new tires for my 98' Cougar at “The Tire Shop” in town. My car needed new tires for awhile now and I had finally saved up enough money to get it done. I had forgotten to call ahead and make an appointment, so when I got there I had to wait until they were done with the other vehicles in the shop. As I sat there and waited I picked up a magazine that was lying on the table. I began to flip through it and I read a couple stories. I took my time as I knew it was going to take them awhile to get to my car.

As I came to the back of this magazine I notice one of these little ad's in the back that read "Want to meet people your age and make new friends?" At first I didn't think nothing of it, but as I pondered my eye's across the room and back to the magazine I began to reminisce about a previous relationship from several months before that I was in and how I had fell-in "love" for the first time, which led me to staring at this ad. I thought I had found the one and loved my life at the time. But little did I know it wasn't going to last long. I had a rough break-up and for the longest time I couldn't figure out what I did wrong. But as I drew a blank stare I realize right then and there I was going to stop blaming myself and was ready to move on. So I gave this ad a shot. It read further down "text ####, your age, your gender" I followed the instructions and text the information it asked for. As soon as I was done they called my name to pick my car up.

As several days went by I had forgotten about the text add in the back of the magazine and was focusing on a new beginning and my work. About two weeks later out of the blue one day at lunch I had received a text from the number that I had sent the information to from the ad. It had a guy’s information and another number to text back and become friends and chat. So me being curious and starting a new beginning I did.

As the day went on I kept wondering to myself if I would get a text back and if so who would it be, what kind of personality would they have, what would we talk about, where they would be from, etc. I got off work and headed straight home. I checked my phone as I began to walk into the house and notice I had received a text message. It read "Patrick Shaffer, age 18, male" "Hi! How are you?" I kind of laughed to myself as I walked into my bedroom, in a bit of a surprise that someone did text back. So I sent a simple “doing well, how are you?” text back. And as the night went on I had found out that Patrick was a couple months younger than me, graduated the same year and was into very much of the same things as I was which was pretty neat. Although, he was all the way in West Point, MS we had a lot in common and enjoyed each other’s company through texts.

We had sent over forty texts the first night, just simply finding out about each other, our interest, hobbies and reason for texting the number for the "friends ad". Turns out, that he too had found the ad in another magazine and was just messing around and sent his information in not thinking he would find someone like me.

Over the period of several weeks I had gotten to know Patrick more and more. I found myself waiting on a text from him each morning, on my lunch break and after work. I was getting used to this, someone I could share my emotions with, laugh with, cry with and not worry about getting my heart broke or even thinking of my previous relationship. I was feeling pretty happy, happier than I had been in the past five months or so. I never really thought about the future or what it had in store for Patrick and I or if there even was a future. I was taken it day by day.

One cold day as I went to my car on my lunch break, I noticed I didn't have a text and was kind of worried because Patrick and I had been texting each other every day,  but I looked at my phone again and saw that I had a missed call. This was strange because I didn’t recognize the number and was hesitant to call the number back as they didn’t even leave a voice mail. I had picked up some lunch at the local fast food place and ate my lunch. As I was sitting there I thought about why Patrick hadn't text me back and checked my phone one more time. I had remembered about the unknown number that had called earlier and decided to call it back. It rang about three times and finally someone answered, I said "I had a missed call from this number earlier and wanted to find out what the call was about" A younger guys voice answered back "Oh, it must have been a mistake sorry" And hung up. I was a little puzzled but didn't think much of it and headed back to work.

That evening after work I finally had received a text from Patrick. I explained to him about how my day went and told him about the missed call I had received. And he said "Oh, that was me" I text right back puzzled and said “What?!" I asked him why he didn't answer and he said "I don't know, I didn't think you would call back" I hadn't notice the number because as we text through this ad it blocks each others numbers. We exchange numbers and from then on we called each other as often as we could. We would talk for hours and stay up late, but still found all sorts of interesting stuff to talk about.

It had been almost two months since Patrick and I had first talked on the phone and had exchanged pictures and letters and still enjoyed the long night talks. As we were talking one day Patrick asked if we could every meet and when and where. I stopped and wonder for a second and thought to myself if I wanted to meet him and if it was safe. But all I kept thinking was "of course it's safe you know this guy more than you ever thought you would" "and it might be a mistake but you'll learn from it" “What do you got to lose” I also began to think to myself if I was starting to fall-in love again and if that was even possible. So we began to talk about meeting each other and how we would go about doing it. I spoke with my mother about taking me to Little Rock to pick him up if he rode a gray hound bus to the bus stop because I didn’t want to go alone. I just knew in my mind she would say no but I had to give it a shot. To my surprise she said yes! I was shocked, excited and even had butterflies in my stomach. I couldn't believe it, it was like a fairytale. So the plans began,  I would take of work early and my mother and I would drive to Little Rock to pick him up at the bus stop and he would catch a gray hound bus to Little Rock. I couldn't believe I was actually doing this, little alone that my mother was going with me!

The next week couldn't have gone any slower. I felt like the day would never come. It was the day to go to Little Rock. We started on our way and I could barely contain myself, just knowing he was on a gray hound bus and I was going to meet him. On the way my mother and I had a good conversation and asking ourselves "what if he isn't even there?" "What if he's a creep or something?" I said "Well I don't know that for sure but I'm going to trust my heart" I said "Mom, Patrick is different and in a good way" I guess I said it in a strange way because my mom busted up laughing. After a long drive and some crazy conversations we finally arrived and found the bust stop with no problem. As we pulled up I noticed a guy standing on the corner pacing back and forth it was dark and I couldn't quite make out the person’s face or anything. So we slowly drove by and there he was! The guy I had been texting, talking with, laughing with, cried with and sent letters to, all long distance. I can't really describe my feelings or what was going through my head. He got into the car and just like over the phone we started talking right away. It's like it didn't matter what either of us looked like. We still cared about each other a lot and wanted to be close to each other. It seemed as if we had met a long time ago. We talked the whole way back and we both were just so excited after about three months we finally had met.

Over the next couple weeks things were getting better and better with Patrick. We basically felt like we had been together this whole time and never felt like strangers. I guess it’s because of all the long nights of calling, letters and text. I kept thinking to myself, if he wanted to go back home, if he even liked it here, if he liked my family, if he regretted meeting me. But Patrick reassured me that he loved it here and loved being with me and thanking my mother for the chance to meet me in person. Patrick and I grew closer and closer.

A couple years had gone by and Patrick and I had our own place and were enjoying life and enjoying it together. I knew that my life couldn’t get any better. I had found my soul mate, a friend and great boyfriend. Things were going great and this time I knew for sure that this was true love. I wasn’t worried if I was going to get my heart broke again because I knew that what we had was real love and not just another relationship.  

We were headed to my sister's house one evening and I noticed Patrick was acting a little strange but I didn't think much of it. As we were riding along, he pulls the car over in a church parking lot which is close to my sisters, gets out comes around the car opens my door takes my hand and kneels down on one knee asks me to marry him! I was surprised and started crying and nodded my head yes. It all seemed like it happened so fast from just being silent in the car headed to my sister's house to him being knelled down on one knee. But I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way!

My life had changed all from a little ad in the back of a magazine that we both happened to notice and be spontaneous and follow the instructions. It was weird, exciting and kind of a shocker. I thought to myself that this would be one crazy story we would be explaining to our kids, family and friends in the future!   

 “True love will always find its way”

*I've told our story to some friends and family and they always tell us that it’s a fairy tale story and that we should write a book about it and that it was a very interesting story. So this is as close to a book as I can get...haha! Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading my true story!