Before We Were “We”

Alexander and I knew each other before we started dating. We were friends for almost two years. Or more accurately, we were part of a large group of friends.

I was reminded of this fact today when I stumbled across an old photo album of Alexander’s. It had a few pictures from high school, some pictures of his freshman year in the dorms and a couple images capturing the two years he spent in Honduras on a service mission for our church. After all those pictures came the “us” pictures. Pictures of Alexander and me, in the midst of friends, before we were an “us.” The last picture in the album is one of our engagement photos.

I sat down to look at the pictures and a million memories came flooding back. Because I can’t do anything without attracting the attention of my two pint-sized followers, Lij and Dylan soon began looking at the pictures too. As we flipped through the beginning of the album they shouted “Daddy” excitedly every time they spotted him (basically every picture). Then about halfway through the photos they started shouting “Mommy” too.

That’s when it hit me: Alexander and I have been we for a long time. And I was suddenly grateful for our years of pre-coupledom friendship. We have so many more memories to share because of it. Memories not only for us, but ones we can share with our kids. And hopefully they’ll be more interested and willing to listen since the stories will involve both Mommy and Daddy.

I’m sure they’ll also get a kick out of the fact that Alexander took the Daring One to their senior prom and that the only formal dance I ever went to was with Alexander’s brother (Alexander was also there as part of our group and went with my best friend). But that’s the point, after all. We weren’t always “we.” In fact, we’re probably only “we” because we were friends first.

And I hope my kids enjoy that knowledge as much as I do.