(originally posted in May 2009)

Jazz Fest, May 1997.

The city of New Orleans will always hold a special place in my heart.

And not just because I went to college there. But because I met my husband there. During Jazz Fest. Exactly one year before this picture was taken.

(Props to my friend Rachel for taking this awesome shot btw.)

Anyway. The reason I’m telling you this story goes a little something like this.

Two months before I met my husband, I was engaged to another guy.

True story.

We’d been together for about 5 years, and then one morning, when I was innocently putting on my mascara and getting ready to leave for work, he waltzes into the bathroom of the apartment we’d been sharing for the last three years and tells me he doesn’t want to get married.

You heard me.

I’ll spare you all the sad, sordid details (#sorrynotsorry) and skip straight to the moral of the story.

Say you’ve just been dumped by your future husband and your entire foundation has just been ripped out from beneath you. And say your best friend calls from LA to invite you to go to Jazz Fest with her. And say you REALLY don’t want to go because you aren’t quite ready to face life as a single chick in Manhattan, let alone on vacation in New Orleans.

I mean, who could blame you, right?

But then, say, you wake up one morning and Alanis Morrisette is on the radio singing You Outta Know, and you go to get dressed and you realize you are suddenly drowning in your size zero Chaiken and Capones and so you think Fuck. This. Shit.

And so you take a leap and you book a flight to New Orleans and you get on a plane. And you freaking GO.

And then, say, that very first night, you stumble upon A Guy — who may or may not be THE Guy — in a bar, at five o’clock in the morning, when you may or may not be engaging in mind-altering activities and may or may not be dancing on a pool table in ripped jeans and Diesel crop top.

And let’s say that it turns out that this guy lives five blocks from you back in Manhattan.

And one of the friends you are now in New Orleans with? Um. He totally used to date her.

So what do you do?

Do you give him your number?

Do you tell him you were just dumped, like, three months before your goddamn wedding?

Um… Yes. And Oh HAIL No!

You tell him it was TEN months ago.

And then one day, after you’ve been dating for say, two or three months, and you slowly begin to realize that this may actually be going somewhere, you bite the bullet and tell him the truth.

Like, the REAL truth.

And if he’s all “whatev,” and just doesn’t seem to care that up until this very moment your entire relationship has been based on a lie…

Well, then, he’s The One.

And that moral of the story?

Whoever told you aren’t going to meet the guy you’re going to marry on the rebound, on vacation, in a bar, at five o’clock in the morning, after a night of debauchery, while dancing on a pool table while telling lies and wearing ripped jeans and a crop top…

Was mother-freaking WRONG.