PART FIVE: ...HAPPILY EVER AFTER

i walked out to the patio where everyone was sitting around the table talking. there were only two seats available to sit in. both happened to be on one side of andy. at the time, adam was standing, but when i approached the table, he quickly sat in one of the two available seats. and it wasn't the one directly beside andy. smooth move, adam. smooth move.

so, i nervously pulled the chair out and sat down. what happened next is one of andy and i's favorite memories of this moment.

i sat my phone down on the table with the screen side down and my cool new hippie-like-graphic phone cover side up. andy picked up my phone to admire the cool new hippie-like-graphic phone cover and my first words to him were, "umm...please don't touch my things."

we laughed. and just like that, everything felt like it was supposed to. we talked for most of the night, catching up. he shared with me that he and his girlfriend had just broken up that week and he was looking forward to enjoying the rest of his summer with his friends before heading back to finish his senior year at millersville in the fall. sound familiar?

when he left that night with adam, he texted me from his car to say how nice it was to see me and that we should plan to get together that weekend to continue catching up. the plans were made to casually get together and hang out on his mom's boyfriend's boat on the river.

it was a strange feeling, waiting for him to pick me up that night. it was like déjà vu. this had all happened before, but now i was lucky enough to relive it again.

when we got to the boat, everything felt so natural. like three years really hadn't passed by. we talked about so many things, just trying to make up for lost time. i never wanted that night to end. this was it. we found our way back to one another.

when it was time to head home, i knew there was one thing left i had to tell him. with tears in my eyes and an honest heart, i told him that over those years apart, it didn't matter who i was with or what i was doing, there wasn't a day i didn't think of him and wish i was sharing that moment with him. he hugged me so tight, and shared the same confession.

just like that we were us again. weird and crazy in love. august '08.

so, this is where i end the story of how we came to be. and this time i can say, "...and we lived happily ever after."

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PART FOUR: OUR SECOND BEGINNING

this is where my faith blossomed. i wasn't giving up. i knew we would be together again. and if that meant i needed to learn patience and wait for him, then that was what i had to do.

this was our second beginning.

we were back at the start again. just like those four years before, when i forced my temper tantrum prone self to play it cool and wait for that undeniably perfect senior boy to become my boyfriend, i needed to do the same once again.

so, i spent time waiting, learning who i was. this was my opportunity to grow--what i intended to do all along. become the person i was meant to be for andy, for us.

andy and adam in '07. best friends since elementary school.

during this time of waiting, andy and i remained without communication. he was in a steady long-term relationship. but i felt so strongly in my heart that we would be together again. it was part of the plan. god placed him in my life for a reason and i knew it wasn't just for that first time around, it was for forever. i would marry him, despite what anyone else believed. we were destined to be together.

my first year of college ended and it was finally summer. i came back home ready to enjoy this new outlook i had and process of growing i was experiencing. trusting that when it was meant to be it would be--we would find our way back to each other.

my sister, ashley and i. sunkissed and very blonde at the beach in '08 a few weeks before our second beginning.

just like i had done most of that summer, i headed to vito's house, my sister's boyfriend, after work one late july night for what i anticipated would be a typical gathering of our usual group of friends (which coincidentally happened to include adam, andy's best friend i mentioned in part one). but on my way, i got a phone call from my mom who was just leaving vito's house, giving me a heads up that someone would be there i probably wouldn't expect to see. andy. 

i can still remember the rush i felt before walking into the house. butterflies in my stomach. my heart about to explode. wondering whether he would notice me or talk to me. what would we say? would it be weird?

we had seen each other a few times that summer but not in an intimate setting like this. most of the time it was during moments like driving by one another in our cars, at the grocery store or a brief run-in when with mutual friends. and i promise you, i still had those rush of emotions each time i saw his curl headed self, even if it was for a second.

but this time felt like it would be different. and i was right.


...the story continues with PART FIVE: ...HAPPILY EVER AFTER

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PART THREE: THE GRASS ISN'T ALWAYS GREENER

time went by and we both had new experiences. while i spent a lot of my time with my best friends, i also searched to find something to replace the aching space in my heart that needed to be filled. the space in my heart that i had filled with andy.

so i dated. a lot. weren't these the "experiences" i was meant to have? experiencing who i was without andy, who i was with other people? looking back now, i realize what i was doing. i was searching for a replacement. someone who came close to the gentle, sweet and caring person i found in andy. i didn't know it then, but i would never meet anyone as true and rare as he was. he set the standards too high and no one would ever compare.

there were times in the beginning of our time apart while i was seeing other people, that out of pure selfishness, i would call him, tell him i needed to see him and he would be there in a minute. it was as if i needed a reassurance that i hadn't completely lost him. that he was still there when i needed or wanted him to be. but it was only on my terms and it wasn't fair. so after about a year of this pushing and pulling i did with him and his heart, he bravely told me he couldn't do it anymore. it only hurt him and he needed to move on.

so he cut me off. entirely. he stopped responding to any form of communication i tried. he went off to school at millersville university and began his life. without me.

i was still in high school and he was in a new city. making new friends. having new experiences. isn't this what i wanted? for him to not be held back by me? to enjoy college and pursue his dreams? it now felt like i was living through our break up all over again. but from the other side. and it wasn't fun.

once i learned he was in a new relationship, it hurt my heart even more. i was experiencing the same pain he felt when he saw me with someone new. and it was awful. i never knew the truth behind the saying "the grass isn't always greener on the other side," until i experienced it first hand.

as more time went by without any communication with him, i thought i had finally found my happiness in someone new. someone i ironically saw a tiny bit of andy in. of course, like many of my relationships after him, my comparing of them to him would cause tension in the relationship. lots of fighting. something i wasn't used to, because with andy, everything was easy. it didn't matter who i was with, i never stopped thinking about him.

but with the constant push from my family and friends who continued to say, "andy has moved on. you will never get back together, so you should too," i felt pressure to give up on him and settle for the life i now had with this new person i found. someone i thought was the closest thing i would ever have to andy. so i followed him to college at bloomsburg university. and after a year of dating during our senior year of high school, and only a month after starting college together, things ended badly.

as i sat with my roommate in pain from the hurt i was experiencing, the only person i wanted was andy. i begged my roommate to call him from her phone, praying he would answer. and he did. and after a year of no communication, he sat on the phone with me while i shared with him the pain i was going through. he listened. he comforted me. he was there for me. after all that time. after everything i had done to him. he was still there for me when i needed him.

...the story continues with PART FOUR: OUR SECOND BEGINNING.

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PART TWO: TIME TO GROW

now in a perfect love story, i would have been finished sharing "our story" with my last post. that would have been it. all that would have been left to say was "...and we lived happily ever after." but, that's not how ours played out.

let me backtrack. after becoming official, it wasn't long till we exchanged our first kiss, met each other's families, shared our deepest secrets, hopes and dreams, and created countless beautiful memories. i was 15 and he was 18 but we were in love. the purest and most innocent of loves.

prom '03...danced to our song, sade - by your side <3

i doodled his name all over my notebook all day and counted the minutes till our next hallway meet-up. he showered me with thoughtful reminders of his love daily--handmade cards, drawings, notes, sunflowers--i had never experienced this type of kindness and respect from another person, especially not from a boy. he was a rarity for sure.

while we remained in bliss for quite some time, i began to feel unsure about the longevity of our love. we were so young. of course i could see myself marrying him someday, but was i ready for that? to remain with this one person, never experiencing life independently? who was i without andy? was i going to miss out on other experiences? was he?

this all made me feel frightened and overwhelmed. so, i began distancing myself. he could feel it too. i wasn't the same and it didn't feel fair, neither to him nor myself.

after graduating the year before, andy had started classes at the local community college and i often thought his decision to not go away was made because of me. i hated to think i held him back from his dreams. i loved him so much, but i knew we needed time apart. i needed time to grow. he needed time to grow.

when you love someone so much and there is no real truth behind why you need to part ways, it makes breaking up even harder to do. the thought of hurting him hurt me more than i could have imagined. but it's what i thought needed to be done. and when it happened, i couldn't hold back the tears and thoughts of, "did i just make a huge mistake?" i was losing my best friend.

i'm sure you've all been there. you break up with someone and realize, you have to break up with their family too. and their friends. anyone who was theirs, before they became yours. this rang true for my family. every one of my family members loved andy. he had become as much a part of their lives as he was mine. i actually remember my mom crying when it happened. i knew everyone was experiencing the loss--not just me.

but i tried to remind myself that this is what needed to happen. so we spent a few months apart with limited communication. i needed to give him his space and allow him to work through his heartbreak. and i needed to figure out my own emotions.

...the story continues with PART THREE: THE GRASS ISN'T ALWAYS GREENER.

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PART ONE: THE BEGINNING OF US

i believe that it was in my destiny to fall in love with andy.

i know what some of you are already thinking, "come on, get real lady. this isn't a movie!" but hear me out. i truly believe that there are people and moments in our lives that are part of the plan, His plan. isn't that what having faith is all about? i'm not ashamed for believing in it.

i didn't always have this faith in the plan. i'll touch more on that later, but first let me start from the beginning.

it was early fall of '03 and i was a wide-eyed freshman, excited to enter my first year of high school. i had spent the summer with my best friend erica, who was a grade ahead of me, hanging out with all the cool upperclassmen i would soon be sharing the halls with. it wasn't until a few weeks before school started that i met him--the 6' 5", sweet faced, curly headed, senior soccer player i had seen a few times before and had always felt my heart beat faster for. i'm not sure what intrigued me more, his incredible hair or the laid-back, cool persona he had. either way, i was smitten.

andy circa '03. i mean, that hair?! how could i not?

now i'm the kind of person that when i want something, i gotta have it. my family blames it on my placement in the family as the "baby," because i've been known to throw a temper tantrum or two when i can't have what i want. internally i was throwing a temper tantrum because i had to have this boy as my boyfriend. i had to.

but i put my game face on and played it cool. i was a freshman and he was a senior. i couldn't come off immature or he definitely wasn't going to be interested. i told erica about my serious crush on andy "matrix" (←i'm so embarrassed, but i thought this is how his name was pronounced for nearly two months, before i discovered it was really "mat·trick") and she planned ways for us to casually hang out with him. it played out well because she ended up crushing on his best friend, adam, so the four of us spent more and more time together.

i soon came to find out, andy came with some baggage: a territorial ex-girlfriend*. his past relationship didn't end well and because it was so messy, andy innocently shared with me in one of our late night AIM conversations (holla at your girl, kingandy53!), he didn't want a girlfriend his senior year of high school, because he wanted to focus on enjoying his last year of school with his friends.

remember those temper tantrums i am prone to having when i can't have what i want? well, they were in full swing after he shared this with me. it only intensified my desire for him. but i wasn't giving up. i was falling harder with every moment i spent with him. so, i waited. till finally, after three months of what i felt was an eternity, in the basement of erica's house, on 11.11.03, my future husband, formally asked me to be his girlfriend. one of my most cherished memories--the beginning of us.

...the story continues with PART TWO: TIME TO GROW.

*i wanted to make note that while the ex-girlfriend and i didn't get off to a great start back when we were youngsters in high school, in love with the same boy, we are certainly friends now. maybe it was the common interest that lead us to friendship? :)

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