The Story Of Us

Over the last year, since launching my blog, I have received a few messages from people encouraging me to write about Laine and I’s relationship. Meaning: no lesson to be learned, no grace to be extended, no light to be shed on furthering inclusion. Just our story. Whether it be a request to share about our engagement or the tale of how we met, it seems to be something that a handful of my followers would enjoy reading. I have always been hesitant because, quite honestly, I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be interested in reading something like this. I have repeatedly talked myself out of it, convinced that we are just ordinary people with an ordinary love story. Albeit, magical to me. But certainly not to anyone else.

And then I received a message from a new follower this week thanking me for writing my “Pulled From The Closet” piece; the one about my experience of being outed in college. She shared sentiments about how the story resonated with her and expressed her feelings of encouragement after seeing where I am now: happily married and living free of scrutiny despite my past hardships. And in that moment, in the midst of reading what she had so bravely shared, I was reminded of why I began writing in the first place. It is why I continue to write. This precious stranger, someone at a crossroads in their own journey, took away feelings of hope from my story. There is not a single thing that could make my heart fill up with joy faster.

She further shared that she truly believes we were all made for community and connection – and that those two things can be extremely life-giving. And with those words, I suddenly felt overcome with certainty and confidence about anything that I choose to share in this space. Because this new friend is right: connection can be life-giving. It can even be live-saving. Connecting to someone’s trials and tribulations has the ability to inject so much light into your very own life, even if simply through words on a page. I know one thing for sure – Laine and I? We ARE just ordinary people. But isn’t everyone in this world? Not a one of our stories deserves to be heard more than the other. We can all offer this incredible gift of story-telling to enhance the community and connection that we all so desperately crave. I think our world could use more authentic sharing – and that includes ordinary, every day love stories between ordinary, every day people.

I know there are LGBTQ+ youth all around the world who are only exposed to same-gender relationships in the media, left to wonder if “real” LGBTQ+ love stories even exist. By real, I mean relationships in the actual world outside of the Netflix shows they watch or fiction novels they read. I know this to be true because I was one of those young girls. Before fully coming out, I did not know any happily married lesbian couples. I had not come in contact with any women who could serve as my real, raw example. I was only exposed to the LGBTQ+ bubble that I found myself in; one full of youthful relationships and flighty lust that lacked substance. I have always been certain that I wanted to get married and build my own family one day. So you can imagine how frustrating it was to search and search but continuously fail to find same-gender relationships that could offer me encouragement. I needed hope. I craved relatability. And it was nowhere to be found.

That experience was difficult. It was disheartening. And these are feelings that I know so many of us in the LGBTQ+ community share. I feel so called to offer perspective and hope to those within the queer community that may be struggling to connect. If writing this has the capability to bring a sense of peace or feelings of encouragement to even one, young LGBTQ+ person, then it will have served its purpose.

So here it is; our little story. Two ordinary women who fell into an extraordinary love. Magical for no reason other than it is ours. My wish is that it can serve as inspiration for those that are searching for what I could never find.

To all of the young, queer girls around the world who are desperate for affirmation that you will one day find the most ordinarily extraordinary love – this one’s for you.

THE STORY OF US

Laine and I first met on the very last day of 2014. We were both attending a New Years Eve party in Dallas by way of mutual friends. She was dating one of my good girlfriends at the time and came in town from Austin to go to the party with her. Me and that friend had decided that we should go to the party together so we could get ready and pre-game as a group (completely unrelated side note: I was just overcome with feelings of a hangover from simply typing the words pre-game. Is this 31?). Turns out, I was attending the party to meet up with someone who had been pursuing me. So, in a nutshell, I was using the get-together as an opportunity to scope this girl out. Needless to say, neither of us were available when we first laid eyes on each other. However, I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of jealousy for my friend who was attending the party with Laine. I thought she was so painfully dreamy. Her big brown eyes, her genuine kindness, the TATTOOS. I specifically remember asking myself, “where do girls like that exist and how do I get introduced to one?”. Little did I know I would be walking down the aisle toward those chestnut eyes just five years later. Life is BANANAS.

As for that first night, nothing juicy to report. We all rode to the party in a big SUV together where Laine and I shared the backseat. It was just us two, so we had the chance to chat a little. I volunteered to squeeze back there when the car pulled up, and she quickly volunteered as well – so I like to say that was her first move. Other than our back-row romance on the way to the NYE shenanigans, we did not spend much more time together. We parted ways once we arrived at our destination; she was occupied with her date and me with mine. So all in all, we met, we claim to have had immediate secret crushes (I definitely did), but we were both somewhat involved with other women. That was that.

Fast forward to November of 2015, about 11 months after first meeting. Laine was no longer dating the girl who she attended the New Years Eve party with, and I was recovering from a break up with the girl whom I had gone to the party to scope out. After meeting her that night of the party, I had only seen her two to three other times at group functions in the months following, so I wouldn’t even have classified us as friends. In that same week that I found myself single, Laine happened to be in the Dallas area with some friends from Abilene. She had moved from Austin and was now living there while she attended the Abilene Police Academy, a goal of hers she had mentioned to me when the two of us were scrunched in the back of that SUV a year prior.

Although we had not stayed super connected, I had always thought about Laine, secretly hoping I would have the chance to get to know her better one day. What happened next is partly embarrassing, and partly (mostly) the best decision I’ve made in my life to date. I would not, at all, call myself a pursuer. In all of my past relationships prior to this moment, I was pretty apprehensive about pursuing a girl that I was interested in. This was partly due to having my confidence shattered from a distant past relationship, and partly because I was still finding my footing when it came to women. But for some reason, on this particular November night, I mustered up the bravery, and I reached out to Laine. I had this tug in my heart that I could not ignore, one that demanded I not abandon my gut feeling. Laine would be incredibly disappointed in me if I didn’t share what my message actually said – so here it is. Are you ready for this incredibly well articulated, dripping with swag text message that I so confidently sent?

“Can’t let a friend know that you are in town?!”

And that’s it. The message that catapulted me into the rest of my life. Ordinary, yet extraordinary. Simple, yet pure magic. Laine must not have been lying when she claims to have had a secret crush because that text? It’s tragic. Not a clever, nor cute, nor sexy, thing about it. A FRIEND? Welcome to the inside-scoop of Kaila attempting to flirt with her crush. The only thing that matters here is this: it worked. Which means I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. The beginning of my wildest adventure. Do the things that scare you, sis. It could open the door to the rest of your life.

From that moment on, we were in constant communication. I was living in Dallas, and she in Abilene, so we were navigating long-distance. We actually did not see each other the weekend I sent the infamous text message because she was leaving the next day, but it became the start of us getting to know each other. And that we did. We texted constantly and even had many of Facetime dates in the pretty early stages. If you know me at all, you know that this is a big deal. I am NOT a phone person. I feel assaulted when someone calls me and answer about 25% of the time. Phone chat exhausts me – I am who I am. Now add video on top of that, and I am SO OUT. But it was different with Laine. I could have talked with her for hours. I remember being so nervous the first time she wanted to call me on Facetime, but within seconds of being on that video with her, my worries washed away. We even became penpals, one of my favorite parts of the beginning of our relationship. We wrote each other letters and sent them through the actual postal system. Like, snail mail. How sweet is that?! I remember thinking her handwriting was perfect. I still have every single one of those letters in a special drawer where they will stay forever.

She came to Dallas a few weeks following that initial text and did something very unexpected, especially in the world of lesbians. She decided to stay with friends (who are now our very best friends) instead of staying with me. We spent the whole weekend hanging out with a ton of our mutual people in Dallas, but each night, she would hug me goodbye, and head back to where she was staying. Keeping with the trend of me doing things that were uncharacteristic, I begged her to stay with me the second night. WHAT is wrong with me? Remember, not a pursuer – but I could not help myself and I do what I damn well want, I guess. And as sweet as she could be, she told me no, explaining that she didn’t want to rush anything. I was pretty embarrassed and had a slightly bruised ego. She later told me she had really high hopes that we would be something special, so making sure that I knew I was not just someone she wanted to come in town and sleep with was extra important to her. My feelings only grew stronger and more curious after that weekend. Turns out, I was unknowingly falling for the woman that would become my wife.

The first time she came to Dallas to solely spend time with me, I was so overcome by nerves from wanting everything to be flawless. I reached out to one of my good friends who I knew was a great cook (I so was not) and asked her to give me an easy recipe that I could prepare, as to give Laine the impression that I was, ya know, domestic AF. A little white lie to impress your crush never hurt nobody, am I right? Key word here: I needed it to be an EASY recipe. At this juncture in my life, cooking mostly consisted of either microwaving meals or boiling noodles. I’ve come a long way, okay? My dear friend gave me a recipe for a chicken spaghetti casserole dish and I proudly had it in the oven when Laine arrived that night. The champagne was cold and my nervous system was on fire. The chicken spaghetti could have fed a family of sixteen – I didn’t have a clue about adjusting a recipe’s contents for the appropriate amount of people. But nonetheless, the night was perfect. We drank wine, ate dinner, put up the three years worth of leftovers, and spent the night on the couch sharing cocktails and conversation. It was the best first date I’ve ever had.

In January of 2016, I got a letter in the mail from Laine. A few weeks into dating and we were still sending letters back and forth. It was such a fun aspect to those early stages of our relationship. I remember being so excited to check my mailbox to see if I had anything from the little old town of Abilene, TX. It was January 28th, and I opened my apartment letter box to see an envelope with that perfect handwriting on the front. She rambled a little about how much she has enjoyed getting to know me, and how happy she has been in the past month since spending time with me. As a reminder, I was fresh out of a relationship, so I was also cognizant about taking things slow as to make sure I was not just in a rebound stage. I wanted to be certain that these strong feelings that I was experiencing for her were real. Because of this, I had continuously mentioned that I was not ready to put a title on our relationship. I’ll admit: this was mostly because I was worried of how people would perceive me. I imagined so much talk.

“Look at Kaila, just jumping from one relationship to another. What a typical lesbian move.”

“She can’t be over her last relationship already! This new girl must just be keeping her busy for now.”

How stupid – to not trust my very own feelings that I knew were the truest I’ve ever felt. Deep down in my heart, there was no question Laine was it. She was exactly the type of woman I had been looking for, and I was allowing imaginary fears to keep me from making anything official.

Luckily, Laine wasn’t having any of that. A continuous trend throughout our relationship has been this: Kaila tries to ruin it with her control and mood swings and insecurities, and Laine never allows it. She knows that our love is worth the battle. That trend, the one where she is always saving me from myself, started with this exact moment.

I opened that letter, read through those sweet rambles, and made it to the last sentence. The one that explained that she knew I wanted to wait, but she just could not hold out for one more second. In that letter, the one that i read on January 28th, 2016 in my little one-bedroom apartment, she asked me to be her girlfriend. She somehow knew I would say yes, despite my worries. And she was right. I immediately called her on Facetime so that she could see my face beaming with joy, and I told her I would be honored to take that next step. Best day ever.

Keeping with the pen-pal trend, it was 90 days later, on our 3 month dating anniversary, that Laine wrote me a letter and signed it with “I love you”. It was the first time either of us had said it. I can still feel the butterflies that swarmed my stomach when I read the end of that letter.

“Happy 3 months, babe. I love you.”

The first time she ever said I love you to me is on something tangible; a letter that I can revisit any time I want. Four years ago, her shaky hand wrote down those three little words, put them in an envelope, and sent them to Wycliff Ave with hope in her heart. She’ll write I love you in cards and letters a million more times throughout our life together. There have been cards from our first year anniversary, our first Christmas together, and the card she gave to me on our wedding day. There will be cards on our 10th anniversary, at the birth of our children, and cards she will give me on my future birthdays. They all have, and will, end with those three little words.

But none of those are, or will be, as special as the I love you that is etched in black ink on that letter from March of 2016. The first time, forever in my possession. Magic.

We navigated through long-distance for a year and a half, and I wouldn’t necessarily describe it as graceful. For anyone who has experienced it, you know that long-distance relationships are hard. You have to learn to communicate in a deeper and more genuine way than you would if you could simply drop everything and be together in a moment of doubt. You have to endure missing someone deeply while also falling madly in love; two feelings that when swirled together can cause a heap of confusion. Laine would come to Dallas far more than I visited Abilene for a number of reasons. Mostly, her schedule with the police department allotted her three days a week off, two of those being during the week. Therefore, with me working a regular Monday through Friday schedule, it made more sense for her to come visit me so that we could have more time together. Also, there is much more to do in Dallas than there is in a little West Texas town, so being in the city was much more conducive to two young people tangled up in a youthful romance.

I struggled with the distance much more than Laine. Right around the time we were celebrating one year of being together, I started to get incredibly antsy about the next steps in our relationship. I preferred those next steps to be moving in together; the quicker the better. However, Laine had only been working for the Abilene Police Department for nine months and wasn’t ready to put in for a transfer yet. A wise decision on her end, one that I can now see as such. But I didn’t exactly handle it as gently as I would have liked. I was angry, frustrated, sad, and impatient over the next few months. I was so unpleasant that at one point, Laine threatened to walk away from the relationship; something she had never done up to that point and has never done since. And I don’t blame her for it one bit. As a matter of fact, looking back, it was a pivotal moment in our relationship that ultimately catapulted us to the next level. So in a way, I am grateful we went through this trying valley.

After the threat to leave, I did some serious internal work and made major changes when it came to how I viewed our long-distant relationship. I changed my mindset, reminding myself daily that I would rather have Laine in my life on any given day rather than not have her at all. This continuous effort to shift my perspective quickly transitioned us from being in a really challenging season to an extremely happy one. It wasn’t but a few months later, after Laine surpassed her one year mark with the department, that she called to tell me that she wanted to make the move and get a place together in Dallas. I cannot describe the feeling in words. As hard as I had worked to transition my mindset from a negative place to a positive one, I still had worries and doubts about how long we could sustain our love story with all those miles between us. Hearing those words come out of her mouth on the other end of that phone was like being told that the rest of your life, the one you’ve always dreamed of, is about to begin. It was one of the best phone calls I’ve ever received.

Now we are in the summer of 2018. Laine and I signed a lease at a townhome together and lived there for about nine months before deciding that we wanted to start searching for a house to buy. We found a flip that we completely loved and the entire process happened much quicker than we anticipated. We put in an offer, and as unexpected as it was, we found ourselves closing on our first home together. Just one year before purchasing the house, I wasn’t even sure we would make it to our two year anniversary. And now, most days, when I wake up next to her in our bedroom or she brings me a glass of wine on our back patio, I am in awe that this is our home and that she is my wife. It’s pretty amazing how the universe works.

In August of that year, we planned a trip to Denver with some of my best friends from college to celebrate one of their 30th birthdays. Neither of us had ever been to Denver, so we had both been really looking forward to this trip. We got to Colorado on a Friday and didn’t waste any time. We dropped our bags at our Air BnB and, as a group, headed out for an evening full of breweries, food, and more breweries. The next morning, we were scheduled for brunch and then headed to a famous national park right outside of Denver for a group hike. Laine’s aunt lives inside this national park, and her mom happened to be visiting this same weekend – so we parked at her aunt’s house and all took off on our hike from there. Little did I know my life was about to change.

The weather could not have been more perfect and the hike more beautiful. We’d been walking for a good bit when we came to an opening that took my breath away. We walked out from a canopy of trees to a large field draped with a back drop of red rocks. I physically stopped and turned to the group to express how gorgeous I thought the view was, which, I later learned, prompted Laine to decide this would be the spot.

Everyone in our group posed for a picture with their significant other and Laine and I were up last. We handed off our phones to our friends to capture what I thought was just us in front of these gorgeous red mountains, only to find out there was a grander plan. I started to walk back to the group when I felt Laine pull at my hand. As I turned around, she started to make her way down to one knee and my legs immediately turned to mush. I am still unsure how they kept me upright. In the most beautiful setting, surrounded by some of the people we love most in this world, Laine asked me to be her wife. Through shaky knees and tear-filled eyes, I said yes without a single hesitation. It was, and continues to be, the easiest question I’ve ever been asked.

On March 30th of 2019, in the sleepy town of Driftwood, Texas, I am staring at myself in a silver-rimmed, full length mirror. My hair is perfect, my make-up glowing, my wedding dress just zipped up by my mama. All of my best friends are surrounding me, my sister giving my curls one last spritz of hair spray. Our photographer pokes her head in the room; “she’s ready” she says. I take one last look in the mirror, doing my very best to take it all in. As I walk down the carpeted staircase, I am overcome with emotion as I think about all of the years that led me to this moment. I am struggling to believe that everything is just as I’d dreamed; my Dad is set to walk me down the aisle, my sister to give her Matron of Honor speech. My mom just helped me put on my lace-lined shoes and my brother is already anticipating the dance floor. From a completely confused nineteen year old, navigating my first relationship with a woman, terrified of how it would affect my life. To a woman one day into her thirties, confident as hell about where she is going and the one she will share the journey with. I chose to follow the path of uncertainty – knowing it was the only one that offered me a chance at living an authentic and unapologetic life.

I walked down that staircase to our ceremony site to see Laine’s back to me. Our photographer was blasting a playlist on her hip-clip speaker, one full of songs that I’d asked her to compile. I made my way closer to the woman who was about to become my wife – the only part of my dream that I couldn’t have imagined. I always knew that I desperately wanted this moment, but I could have never dreamed it would be with someone as perfect for me as my Laine girl. She is the other half of my soul, the puzzle piece that filled all of my voids. She is my ultimate protector and the guardian of my heart. If I do one thing for the remainder of my life, it will be thanking my lucky stars for this woman; my greatest treasure.

After what felt like one million steps, I was finally standing close enough to Laine to tap her shoulders, signaling her to turn around so that we could see each other for the first time on our wedding day. She slowly pivoted, took one look at me in my long, lace gown, and dropped her head to cry. The first look; what a moment. I knew that she would look perfect that day, but I could have never imagined how beautiful. Every step of our journey was flashing through my head – from meeting on that last night of 2014, to the dreamiest proposal, to the day we would vow to love each other for eternity. With misty eyes, she pulled me in and held me tight. With her arms wrapped around me, I felt a safety that is hard to describe; one that continuously sends a warm message throughout my body, indicating I’m right where I belong. And in that magical moment, I knew — I’d found what I’d always been searching for: a heart that I could call my home.

My hope is that we continue to write a story full of adventure and joy. That we always look for the good and we never forget our beginning, for it is the foundation of our love.

Our love that is ordinarily extraordinary, for no reason other than it is ours.