How I met My Husband
My friend Penny and I talked for the first time in over a year. As we began to catch up on our news, she asked me about Matt. She said "I think your love story is so cute, you were so in love with him and he was absolutely clueless" This is true. So let me tell you all how I met my husband.
Matthew Milam is a quiet man. I would say the strong silent type, who at times believes in expressing everything he is feeling at the moment. He is a college graduate from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science in broadcasting, a Navy man, Desert Storm veteran, served a short hitch in the Air National Guard and in the Navy Reserve. He is from a military family and has lived everywhere. He decided to cut his Navy career short after six years to come and help his mom. He sent applications out and was hired at WJLS as an engineering assistant to help Charlie Marlow. He came there in 1992. I remember the day Charlie introduced us to Matt. Matt was very quiet then. Some thought he was a bit strange. He said later that he had to watch his mouth, because if you have been around anyone in the military they have a way of expressing themselves that will remove wallpaper from the wall. As Matt was getting used to cilvilan life he started working for WJLS two days a week. I would see him around, but we didn't talk. One of my first honest to God conversations with him was an argument.
One morning the station went off of the air, he was the engineer on call. I hate to bother the engineers so I tried everything to get the station back on, so I did have to call him out. He came to the station tried to get it back on and then he left without a word. He got it back on later. I was used to finding out what the problem was, because I was careful and knew what I was doing. He came back and said something to the effect that people don't know what they are doing. I asked what was wrong and he said I fixed the problem. He acted like I didn't know what I was doing and being evasive about what happened. So we argued or rather I argued. He said nothing. Over the next few months he didn't say a whole lot. At the time he had a girlfriend that he bought to the Christmas party.
The next year I asked he if he was going to bring her and he said she got ate by a tetsie fly. In other words she wasn't around anymore and left it at that. He wasn't around much after that because they were in the process of moving the transmitter site from Gray Flats to Raleigh and doing surveys. It was my birthday and I had take my yearbook to work to show someone how one of their relatives looked in high school. He saw it and started teasing me about it. Then he was talking about his professor at Middle Tennessee State came here to help put WTNJ on the air. I was talking about going back to school to get into management and he gave me some info on MTSU. He was saying he needed some extra money and we had suggested that he do some weekend shifts. He declined it and then out of the blue he decided he wanted to do some weekend shifts. I started the process of training him. As you train people you get to talk to them you find out a lot about them. I found out that Matt was really a nice guy. He didn't drink or run around on weekends. He just stayed at home and piddled around the house. Matt had did his partying while on leave in the military and he wanted something different. We started eating lunch together and talking about grandmothers and different things we liked to do and before you know I was interested in him.
Matt became a part of our promotions committee, he had some good ideas and at times a quirky sense of humor. He worked weekends. He went for his two weeks in New Jersey and I was on vacation at the same time and the gossip mill at the station was that we went away together. We weren't even dating then, we were just kind of interested in each other. We kept throwing hints, but each of us missed the other ones hint. I guess when you are older you have been through so much with people that you can't trust your feelings. He started to take me to some of the station events and would work a table or something. I suggested that we got to the Christmas party together since we didn't have dates. We did go and some of the guys were trying to get him to leave , and go out with them. He wouldn't he was a gentleman. We started being friends and then later we started dating. The whole process took about five or six years.
I remember Valentines Day he said, his mom had a date and he didn't. I told him if he would quit being so grouch that I would go out with him. We had other conversations like this. When we finally got around to having a relationship, it was good. He asked me what did I like to do. Before I always had to conform myself to the guy's interests. He knew I went to church. We were both insecure to start and we had some rough patches, but we worked them out. The hardest one was went he went to Texas for three months. I was sure that was the end of the relationship, until he started calling me every night and ran up a huge phone bill. Then we both realized that we loved each other, that we wanted to be together. He kind of proposed to me on my birthday, he brought a ring and handed it to me. One of the awkward moments. Is this what I think it is. Yes.
Before Matt came I was really engrossed in my career and I told God that if you want me to have someone, you'll have to send him to the radio station. That is exactly what he did. Neither of us work there now, I think sometimes that if any course of our lives had been different we wouldn't have met each other. We knew each other seven years when we married.
Matthew Milam is a quiet man. I would say the strong silent type, who at times believes in expressing everything he is feeling at the moment. He is a college graduate from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science in broadcasting, a Navy man, Desert Storm veteran, served a short hitch in the Air National Guard and in the Navy Reserve. He is from a military family and has lived everywhere. He decided to cut his Navy career short after six years to come and help his mom. He sent applications out and was hired at WJLS as an engineering assistant to help Charlie Marlow. He came there in 1992. I remember the day Charlie introduced us to Matt. Matt was very quiet then. Some thought he was a bit strange. He said later that he had to watch his mouth, because if you have been around anyone in the military they have a way of expressing themselves that will remove wallpaper from the wall. As Matt was getting used to cilvilan life he started working for WJLS two days a week. I would see him around, but we didn't talk. One of my first honest to God conversations with him was an argument.
One morning the station went off of the air, he was the engineer on call. I hate to bother the engineers so I tried everything to get the station back on, so I did have to call him out. He came to the station tried to get it back on and then he left without a word. He got it back on later. I was used to finding out what the problem was, because I was careful and knew what I was doing. He came back and said something to the effect that people don't know what they are doing. I asked what was wrong and he said I fixed the problem. He acted like I didn't know what I was doing and being evasive about what happened. So we argued or rather I argued. He said nothing. Over the next few months he didn't say a whole lot. At the time he had a girlfriend that he bought to the Christmas party.
The next year I asked he if he was going to bring her and he said she got ate by a tetsie fly. In other words she wasn't around anymore and left it at that. He wasn't around much after that because they were in the process of moving the transmitter site from Gray Flats to Raleigh and doing surveys. It was my birthday and I had take my yearbook to work to show someone how one of their relatives looked in high school. He saw it and started teasing me about it. Then he was talking about his professor at Middle Tennessee State came here to help put WTNJ on the air. I was talking about going back to school to get into management and he gave me some info on MTSU. He was saying he needed some extra money and we had suggested that he do some weekend shifts. He declined it and then out of the blue he decided he wanted to do some weekend shifts. I started the process of training him. As you train people you get to talk to them you find out a lot about them. I found out that Matt was really a nice guy. He didn't drink or run around on weekends. He just stayed at home and piddled around the house. Matt had did his partying while on leave in the military and he wanted something different. We started eating lunch together and talking about grandmothers and different things we liked to do and before you know I was interested in him.
Matt became a part of our promotions committee, he had some good ideas and at times a quirky sense of humor. He worked weekends. He went for his two weeks in New Jersey and I was on vacation at the same time and the gossip mill at the station was that we went away together. We weren't even dating then, we were just kind of interested in each other. We kept throwing hints, but each of us missed the other ones hint. I guess when you are older you have been through so much with people that you can't trust your feelings. He started to take me to some of the station events and would work a table or something. I suggested that we got to the Christmas party together since we didn't have dates. We did go and some of the guys were trying to get him to leave , and go out with them. He wouldn't he was a gentleman. We started being friends and then later we started dating. The whole process took about five or six years.
I remember Valentines Day he said, his mom had a date and he didn't. I told him if he would quit being so grouch that I would go out with him. We had other conversations like this. When we finally got around to having a relationship, it was good. He asked me what did I like to do. Before I always had to conform myself to the guy's interests. He knew I went to church. We were both insecure to start and we had some rough patches, but we worked them out. The hardest one was went he went to Texas for three months. I was sure that was the end of the relationship, until he started calling me every night and ran up a huge phone bill. Then we both realized that we loved each other, that we wanted to be together. He kind of proposed to me on my birthday, he brought a ring and handed it to me. One of the awkward moments. Is this what I think it is. Yes.
Before Matt came I was really engrossed in my career and I told God that if you want me to have someone, you'll have to send him to the radio station. That is exactly what he did. Neither of us work there now, I think sometimes that if any course of our lives had been different we wouldn't have met each other. We knew each other seven years when we married.
Wow, beautiful story. I am amazed by how much of a gentleman Matt is. How did he take the fact that you are a born-again Christian? How did his family receive you? Did he become a Christian before or after you got married?
ReplyDeleteSorry about all those questions, my daughter read the story with me and she wanted to know all those things. Be blessed, you really are an inspiration.