The Beginning of a Beginning

I left off my last post right before our paths crossed again.
When my nephews were about six months old, my sister decided it was time to go out and work again. She started applying for jobs and got a call back for a retail position. Josh just happened to be the assistant manager that called her.
At first, she was reluctant to even mention his name in my presence. After a month or so, she started to get comfortable and I would hear stories about him often. When she didn't give up information, I would ask. Sometimes I would go in and take her a coffee if she was working late and sometimes he was there. On these occasions, we would look at each other but never speak. I was too nervous.
Right before June, my sister came home with some news. Josh was being promoted and moving to Texas.
I know it sounds overly dramatic, but I really felt like the world was crashing down around me. I didn't know if I could approach him. What if he hated me? What if he had forgotten about me? He left the state and I felt like any hope of reconciliation I'd had was gone with him.
Then, I had a total crazy moment. I don't know what made me do it.
I sent him an email for his birthday, crossed my fingers and waited. Over the next couple of days, I'd run to the computer every morning and check my inbox. Nothing. He really wasn't going to answer me. Now I had no doubt-he was over me.
I think it was maybe five days after I'd sent him the email that I got a reply. It was a message thanking me for the birthday wishes, along with his phone number. I waited what seemed like the longest three days of my life before I sent him a text message. We texted back and forth for a few days, and it progressed to phone calls. We had long conversations about what we had done over the past three years. So much had changed in each of us. We had grown up.
After a month, we were talking on the phone and I told him that I had missed him. He answered back, "I love you too." I was in shock. I didn't expect it so fast. After that, there was no hesitation. We were almost a thousand miles apart but we were going to do this again. He decided to fly out to visit at the end of July and I was there waiting for him. He tells me now that the moment he saw me waiting for him at the airport was when he absolutely knew that he wanted to marry me.
We worked out a system to see each other once a month and we talked on the phone every single day, sometimes for hours at a time. We spent as much time together as possible during our monthly visits. When it was time for us to leave each other, I would cry like a baby.
While we started building a new relationship, Josh was planning something big.