12 Years and Counting

Today Tucker and I celebrate 12 years of marriage. I can't believe it has already been 12 years, and I can't believe it has only been 12 years.
When I was growing up I dated a lot. I'm sure to the outside world it seemed like I needed the attention of a boy to make me happy, but I think I really just craved companionship. Who doesn't? For the most part, the boys I dated in high school and college were really nice people who I have remained friends with. I was lucky. I had really good experiences as a young girl dipping her feet in the dating pool. I guess with that in mind, marrying at 20 doesn't seem so far-fetched!
I met Tucker when I was 18. I had just started going to the Abbey and had just broken up with a boy I had dated the prior year. Tucker was like no one I had ever met. He seemed like an old soul. I always got the feeling that he had a secret about the world that no one else knew. This attracted me and frightened me at the same time.
We had tried our hand at dating early on. It didn't work. I was still very much in that crazy, "Let's have fun" mindset. He was so very reserved. I dated other people from time to time, but he was always there in the background. Constant. He just was always there, waiting for me to need him. Need him I did. Time and time and time again. No matter where I had been or what I had gotten myself into, he was there.
After my first year in college I was in a devastating car accident. Everyone survived, but the ordeal was so traumatic. As I lay in the hospital alone and scared, all I could think of was Tucker, my friend. I needed him. When I was finally flown home, I called him immediately. Within days, he had left his home in Georgia and drove to me in North Carolina to be by my side.
As we sat and talked I fell in love, a love that I had never felt for anyone before. It was a calm love, a peaceful love, a safe love. I was hesitant to share this realization with him, but eventually I did. Over the next few months our friendship turned into a romance, and we were engaged less than 4 months later. People ask how long we dated before we got engaged, and we always tell them we never really did. We just went from friendship to marriage in one fell swoop.
So when I say I married my best friend, I really mean it. Before anything, there was friendship and throughout all of the trials of 12 years of marriage, there has always been friendship.
So I guess I am still that same girl who wants companionship. The only difference now is that I have it. I am now and will forever be linked with the man who knows me better than I know myself, and loves me anyway.