The Story of How We Met....Part 1

Going along with my post from the other day, I decided that its time to tell y'all the story of how D and I met. Get ready...our story is a long one (and I think it has the potential to get a little bit confusing, so bear with me as I try to be as clear as possible!).

As you might have gathered by reading my previous post, D and I have known each other for ten years. We haven't always kept in touch and we're not that "high school sweethearts" couple that you're thinking we are (although lots of people consider us to be). I'll start from the beginning though.

Its November of 2000. Junior year of high school is in full swing. My life couldn't be more perfect. That is, until my best friend Bryan tells me that his family is moving to California. As in, the West coast. I'm from the Midwest. California is a faraway dream-land that I have heard about, but never been to. (Okay, so I'm also a little melo-dramatic as a 16 year old.)

My circle of friends decides that we're going to throw a big going-away party for Bryan before he moves halfway across the world to California. I probably haven't mentioned this before, but now is as good a time as any. I didn't go to elementary and middle school with my high school friends. We went to a private, Catholic high school, and while most of my friends knew each other from their parochial grammar schools, I was a "public" (yes, "public" was a dirty word at my high school). This meant that they had a few friends who went to other schools in the area that I had never had the pleasure of meeting.

On with the story. We've all gathered at someone's parent's house for the most important night of my life. The usual crew is all there. We're hanging out and being super-cool (like only high school students hanging out in their parent's basement can be) when he walks in. I had never seen him before, I know that, because I would have remembered. He was the most handsome boy I had ever seen.

I get a little blurry around this part because I'm pretty sure I was having one of those moments (and it was 10 years ago, people). Somehow he knew all of my best friends from school. I don't remember who did it, but we were introduced to each other. We started chatting and shamelessly flirting with each other. There was a point in the night when we were playing pool and I was being picked up. (I don't know?!!? Like I said, my memories are a little fuzzy...) I do vividly remember walking away from that party with a piece of paper burning a hole in my pocket. On that paper were 7 numbers. I remember them to this day. That night and those 7 numbers changed my life forever.

As it turned out, D and Bryan had gone to grammar school together (along with lots of my other friends as well). They were boy scouts together. They had been best friends. I was Bryan's high school version of D. How weird is that? How we had not met until Bryan left is beyond me. I think it was a sign. Bryan's role in my life was to fulfill a purpose. He was put there to bring me and D together.

Shortly after the first meeting D and I exchanged a series of phone calls. These phone calls are something that the kids of today will never experience. They were the land-line phone calls from our parent's houses. We monopolized the phone lines and talked until the wee hours of the morning. I'm pretty sure that these conversations (if you can call them that) could have set records for the longest phone calls in the history of the free world. We literally talked for hours. Sometimes we didn't even talk, sometimes we would be on the phone so late that I would fall asleep, only to wake up an hour later to hear the silence on the other end.

It didn't take long before we were officially "together." Since D already knew the majority of my friends, he fit right into our social circle. It was more than a little convenient. After a while he started coming by my parent's house for family dinners and just to spend time with me. My parents loved him. We settled into a 2 year long relationship that would ultimately end in heartbreak, but has a happy ending.