What I didn’t mention was my state of affairs when I stumbled upon Mr. Thor, and how hard I tried to NOT fall for him.

How I literally cried and prayed to God to remove this man from my life.

Imagine it: I had just moved to New York (NOT the city. Not even close.) from Nashville, TN. In Nashville, I had a decent, if uninspiring, office job. I had enough extra money to go to several concerts and go out to dinner often. I lived in a great apartment in the city. With my own bathroom.

In NewYork, I had nothing. I was staying out in the true boonies with an old friend who already had a house established, so all I brought in was my bed and a teeny desk.

I had a job making barely over minimum wage. Which meant I had no money. In fact, I had rapidly growing credit card debt due to my underemployment. My bank account was negative, often.

In Nashville, there was a lot of talk about getting yourself “prepared” for your spouse. Men need to get better jobs, get their style together, and buy homes and nicer cars. Women need to lose weight and get their finances in order, as well as work on honing their feminine traits. At least, that’s how interpreted the messages I was seeing around me.

Taking all of this into account as I was slinging coffee and dirty magazines with a -$67.00 bank account balance and living largely off candy bars and muffins and free coffee, I came to one conclusion: I was NOT ready. I was my heaviest in several years. My clothes had holes and stains. My debt was skyrocketing.

I considered my great-aunt Ellen. She never married and lived a wonderful and inspiring life. She has a school named after her. I set my sights on lifelong spinsterhood. I declared my singlehood and decided that I was not going to take on one more crush.

And, besides. The guy liked death metal. Automatic out!

But, almost the moment I decided this, Mr. Thor and I got much closer. I cried, I prayed, I thought about other things, I begged and begged God to remove this man from my line of sight so that I could stop thinking about him. “If you get me a better job, I will move on and prepare for my husband” sounds like some bargaining I might have tried at the time.

But the rejection letters just kept coming, and Mr. Thor never went away.

As a matter of fact, without Mr. Thor I probably wouldn’t be out of credit card debt. I wouldn’t be 50 pounds down in my weight loss journey.

The thing about me not being ready? Neither was he. We met each other during rough, tough times. We grew together. We held hands and talked. We held each other up and took turns encouraging each other. We have become the very best of friends, and I don’t know if that could have happened if things didn’t pan out exactly the way they did.

My mom likes to say something to me, because I always worry about what I’m doing, what decisions I’m making, how successful I am:

“Trust the plan.” 

Although I will probably never stop obsessing over my choices, I know she’s right. Things always work out, even when they dont (that’s my saying.). It’s part of the plan. It makes us who and how we are.