In the days leading up to Valentine’s weekend, there’s a lot of talk about love. So today I want to share a story I’ve never shared before. (Also, I hope you enjoy one of the VERY FIRST photos John and I took up above.) As you know, my family is everything to me, and the closest thing to my heart. So this story takes you way, way back to how I met my husband 23 years ago. This memory keeps me reminded to stay tuned into my intuition. Because the story I’m going to share with you is a very funny, unlikely first moment. I could have easily missed it!
As I’ve said so many times, I’m all about tuning in and staying in the moment. Life is made up of just a whole bunch of small moments. Even though each one is a small moment, if we’re paying attention, it could lead to really big moments in your life based on the decisions that you’re making. The moment can affect so many other things going forward. That is a huge lesson I see through so many events in my life. I can see the power in these moments that other people sometimes can’t and I feel like it’s the best gift that I could have been given in life. Well, besides my family!
So…to get to that… way, way back, more than 22 years ago, I was in Chicago watching my sister bowl a collegiate tournament for Wichita State University. I was a senior in high school. I remember watching her bowl and I was walking through the bowling center with my mom. At the time, I was just living in my little bowling bubble and focused on my bowling. I had a boyfriend and I just didn’t notice other people at all really, and I definitely didn’t notice people noticing me. I was never a girl to gawk at guys or comment on them in any way.
Then something happened and I was just really aware of the moment. This is SUCH a vivid memory, I can remember it in such vivid detail, even though in the moment I had no idea why it was happening. It was like the universe beamed a light on this guy eating French fries. He was standing talking to a group of people, facing away from the lanes and I had no idea who he was. He was just there bowling with his team. I didn’t know his name or anything. But something was really telling me to notice him. It’s such an odd moment because he wasn’t doing anything attractive at all. I mean, he was eating French fries of all things. And whatever it was that told me to notice him was enough that I pointed him out to my mom, telling her I thought he was really attractive. I never did that! And, again, French fries? Why would I notice someone at that moment?
I actually didn’t meet him that day. I only noticed him. That night I asked my sister if she knew who he might be. After noticing him, I paid attention to the fact that he played for William Patterson University. When she said she had some friends there, I described him and she said that it must be her friend John. So then I knew his name, but I left it at that. A month later, I was on AOL Messenger (it was the summer of 1998 so some of you will remember those good old days with me!) and I got a message. “Aren’t you Kassy’s sister?” Man, did I hate that. No one knew my name. I was always “Kassy’s little sister.” My response was, “Hi, it’s actually Diandra.” And then he responded, “Hi, my name’s John. I bowl for William Patterson University.” I mean, what? How? My sister didn’t mention me to him. I just finished high school. How did he . . .
“I saw you in a Bowling Digest Magazine.” I had a spread of pictures in a feature about winning the Alberta E. Crowe Star of Tomorrow. So he said, “Congratulations on winning that!” He explained he had just reached out to congratulate me.
I remember finishing the conversation and then running up my basement stairs to tell my mom. I said, “remember that boy that I pointed out at Kassy’s tournament? He just talked to me online!” Maybe my gut knew it was something before I did… because I printed out our AOL chat conversation. I have it in a scrapbook.
Beyond that, there wasn’t anything more to it for a long time. We continued to talk online just as friends, nothing flirty. When I went off to college, my boyfriend and I decided to part ways very amicably since we were both going to different colleges. I continued talking to John and really began looking forward to his messages every day and hoping that he was going to be online. Then in October, we were going to be bowling in the same tournament. I remember meeting him for the first time and I can still see the moment in my mind’s eye. That was the first time that we actually looked each other in the eye and had a conversation. We’d talked so much by then, online as well as even on the phone, but that was the first time in person. I remember looking into his eyes for the first time ever and thinking to myself. “It’s amazing that I know so much about you already but yet it’s the first time we are actually meeting.” He was even better in person.
Fast forward to November and we bowled another tournament at the same time, this time in St. Louis, and we actually decided to give this thing a shot. We had no idea how this was going to work out but we wanted to give it a try, that long-distance thing. So for eight months, we did and by the next year, he transferred schools so we could be in the same place. And the rest, as they say, is history.
22 years of life, love, laughter and family because I was following my heart and listening to it, tuning in. I was so tuned in and listening that I saw when something put me in the same lane as his life all those years ago. (Pun totally intended.) I really think there’s something to that. When you follow your passion, your passion finds you, too. It all aligns if you’re listening and watching. It’s hardly surprising I met the love of my life on the lanes, right? I feel like I was tuned into a foreshadowing of my future somehow and we created this life together by staying tuned in.
That’s what happens when you’re tuned in. Things are the way they’re supposed to be. Everything kind of falls in line in the universe if you’re present and open to what it’s telling you.
The universe spoke to me with French fries, and I still listened! I’ll always be grateful for that. I owe the life and family I love to that moment!
Do you have a moment like this when you really tuned in to your heart’s intuition, and something special came out of it? And there’s a lot of ways to follow your heart, not just in a relationship. So, leave a comment below and share your heart with me! I’d love to hear your heart story!
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