Will and I met on November 5, 2016 (Remember, remember!  The fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot) at a photography meet up.  Will was actively trying to make friends in the area and had been getting together with a few of my guy friends.  After their meeting, they invited him to come to our meet up.  

We all met up in our church parking lot and carpooled to our secret location (aka, an abandoned school house in the country).  I remember meeting Will and shaking his hand.  I thought immediately that he was very young—19 or 20, probably.  Maybe 21.  As I was 28 at the time you can understand why I wrote him off as someone too young for me.  I sat in the middle in the back of the car because I get car sick, and Will asked me a few questions about the worship team and what instrument I play (the piano/synth).  I responded politely but I wasn’t my usual friendly self, which I really feel the need to explain!

I had just recently gone through a breakup and was still wading through the healing process.  I had also been experiencing the worst anxiety of my life.  As a result, I wasn’t sure if it was the right time for me to be dating, and was really worried about bringing my emotional baggage into a relationship.  So that is essentially where my mind was at when I met Will, who I assumed was very young and therefore didn’t have a lot of life experience.  I felt this deep desire to protect men from rejection and preserve their innocence.  This was of course very short-sighted of me, but I was consumed by my own experiences and brokenness and just found everyone else so innocent and I felt so unworthy.  

(Side note, when people usually ask us how we met I leave all of that out.  Haha!)

We arrived at the school house and got our gear together.  Will was very quiet and although my nature urged me to make sure he felt welcome, my experience with men lately caused me to kind of ignore him and at all costs avoid smiling at him.  I did not need some young guy falling in love with me.  So I ran off with my friend Calvin and started taking photos of a really incredible abandoned school house.  

We spent a few hours there before we headed back to church.  We all had plans to go to a corn maze that evening, so before we split up to go our separate ways I asked Will if he was coming to the corn maze.  Despite not wanting the boy to fall in love with me, I really wanted him to feel included and wanted to make sure he knew he was invited and that we wanted him to come.  

(before)

There was a good group of us at the corn maze that evening.  Will apparently decided that my brother-in-law Jon seemed like a calm, intelligent guy so he tagged along with him and the two of them spent the evening getting to know one another.  The corn was super short and we could see over it in most areas!  So it was much less a maze, and much more just running around being ridiculous.  

At the end, I insisted we all stop and get hot apple cider and take a photo to document.  I was the last person to sit at the picnic table with my cider and I remember there was this huge gap between Will and my friend Stephen, who is married to my good friend Katie.  So I sat next to Stephen but then realized that there was then a huge gap between me and Will and he was sitting on the end all by himself.  I felt like a terrible person because I wasn’t being inclusive of the new, young, quiet guy.  Haha!!!

(after)

And THAT is how we met!  From Will’s perspective, he was initially disappointed that I wasn’t friendly toward him, and he thought that I was dating someone else as well, so he wrote me off at first.  Understandably.  

So how on earth did we ever get together?!

Next time, my friends, next time.  Let me know if you enjoyed this post by liking or commenting!  What story about us do you want to hear next?!  Also, if you subscribe you won’t miss any future content.

❤ Jamie out.

Oh PS.  Will was actually 25, so not quite as young as I thought he was.