I, Stacie, wrote this the summer we moved out of the dorms of the University of North Texas and in with my parents in Forth Worth temporarily until Brett got a job elsewhere. The first two and a half years of our marriage we lived in an apartment in a Freshmen dorm on campus. It was wild and different and I loved it, but I was burned out after two years and needed a break. Brett was away in Greece for one month of that summer and one day every week I’d drive back to Denton to be there— in my heart it was still my home, and it was hard to leave. I began writing out why weird old Denton was so important to me… and I realized I was actually writing how we’d fallen in love…

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Denton isn’t the same without Brett. While I’ve established my own community and heart here, it isn’t the same without him. He isn’t here to watch my stuff at West Oak while i take my mental break and walk to Shop the Barn. It’s been strange coming back to this city every few weeks, watching life continuing without us here.

Like a bajillion other people, this is the city we fell in love in. 

I’m sure countless people have their stories. Our friends Burke and Jill got engaged on the square. One of our friends was married on the square. TONS of my sweet college freshmen went on dates on the square. I remember seeing Brett for the first time after I’d met him in Denton- I was outside Beth Maries Ice Cream and Soda Shop. Brett was crossing the town square streets, walking toward me. He was wearing a basic white v-neck with his jeans rolled up (he still likes to cuff his pant legs that goober) and Chacos. When he saw me he raised his hands straight up in the air, directly over his head, his palms facing me. Like a goof. Just being a goof. He was always doing awkward things like that. Still is. I remember him seeming so sweet and fun that night.

We used to take walks through TWU and the Bolivar neighborhood when I would come home from L.A. in college. He and his roommates somehow inherited a trampoline in their backyard, and we would lay out on that thing and watch the stars and kiss too much for our own good. I remember feeling like the luckiest girl when I’d meet him at Jupiter House (RIP Juho Catwalk to the bar to order your coffee— if you know, you know). I’d be sitting at a table reading and I’d see him walk in and his eyes would search down the long catwalk for me. His eyes would light up and his smile would woo me. Brett will admit he wasn’t always super awesome at showing dreamy excitement when we were dating, but I always saw a sweet grin catch his mouth when his eyes found me— there I was, his girl.

Brett helped change my first impressions of Denton and gave me a love for things in this city I didn’t know I could ever love. He explained to me he really loved going to Big Mikes (RIP) and Jupiter House (new Juho is super cute though am I right?) mainly because that’s where most Christians WEREN’T hanging out. He wanted to be where people who believed different things from him were. I loved that.

Back when we called Big Mikes, Big Dirty Mikes, it was probably my least favorite place to go. But to Brett it was a hidden gem with really great coffee, even if the interior was sad looking (there was one lounge chair people fell asleep in all the time and I always made sure to avoid it) and the Big Mike Frequenters didn’t look like me or think like me. We had countless dates at the IOOF cemetery, playing the ONE game we deem appropriate for cemeteries- we race to see who can find the headstone with our birthday on it first. IOOF doesn’t have my birthday, so we stopped playing that game after awhile. 

We’d run the wooden park (RIP) at Eureka Park and sing songs on the square with Brett’s guitar. We drove to Sangar and went to The Tomatoe a few days before it closed down for good and we made out in the children’s section of Recycled Books. Alright, we made out almost everywhere in Denton, but Recycled is iconic for that kind of thing isn’t it? 

 Brett told me he loved me in his driveway on Bolivar house about three weeks into dating me and I almost called him on the way home to break up with him because three weeks in “I love you’s” freaked me out.

But he knew and was completely confident and sure then that we were going to last.

Brett talked up Weissel Fest for years and the way he talked about it really made me begin to love this small town community he’d fallen for, but I was never home from L.A. in time to make it— I remember dressing SO warm for my first Weissel fest after we’d gotten married. We lived close enough to walk to the square. I remember how awkward it felt outside because everyone was bundled up in coats and scarves drinking hot cider and the weather had panned out to be in the seventies. Whaaaa?!?!? The next year Weissel Fest got snowed out and the town mourned the opportunity to gather and merry. Go figure. 

I’m crying now thinking of how sweet our time in Denton has been. I remember driving away from Denton so frustrated at times- frustrated because I was unsure if Brett and I were the right fit, frustrated by how I treated Brett, or confused how our independent spirits could join together in marriage.

There were so many days I walked Denton lonely, missing L.A., unsure if coming back to Texas was what I really needed to be doing. Texas was a place I had tried so hard to leave and get away from. As Kacey Musgraves put it, “I had to get away so I could grow, but it don’t matter where I’m go’n, I still call my hometown home.” 

 And now that our Denton chapter has closed and I’m excited and struggling all at once to accept our Lubbock chapter (spoiler alert: we moved to Lubbock and it wasn’t the worst four years of my life)— I’m forever deeply in gratitude for how this city has shaped myself, my love story, and my marriage. 

My thoughts from October 2020:

I fell in love with Brett in Denton, TX and it's always a treat to spend a day there drinking coffee, remembering conversations, uttering thanks for the people we were and the people we've become, mourning shops or restaurants we loved that have come and gone, and taking a few pictures in our favorite spots. We took our engagement pictures in Recycled Books eight years ago and while we've certainly bought a lot of books from them, we've never taken any pictures of us there again, so we set the timer and took a few of one another. It was special and I smiled a lot.