The Next Chapter...But How Did It All Begin?

It all seems like it just happened yesterday, but with the fuzzy uncertainty that comes with trying to recall events from 15 years ago. Wow...15 years! Where has the time gone? It all began here at good old Socastee High School. Marc and I were 14 years old and entering our Freshman year of HS. I had seen him in the hall and thought not only is this guy cute, but he seems really interesting...like he has a depth and quality about him that was lacking in all of our fellow classmates, and if I throw up the mirror...myself included.
For all the things that one particular friend has done wrong in his life, he could be the reason that I am wearing a wedding ring today. Pat McCarthy was in my homeroom, and he was also Marc's friend and next door neighbor. I told Pat that I thought Marc was cute, and in the official telephone style of gossip, it reached Marc's ears before lunch. He quickly proceeded to make me his girlfriend before the end of the day. Talk about efficiency!!! This relationship lasted the predicted time of 2 weeks when he dumped me because I was grounded and on phone restriction. But we never totally let go...somehow we were going to be in each others lives!

Fast Forward to sophomore year when our friendship had blossomed into best friend status. I went to Marc with every thought and problem I had. We talked for hours and hours night after night about our future, how ridiculous our parents were, our siblings, our goals and most importantly our dreams. While I am positive that these conversations were lacking in the mature structure that adults have, they were powerful nonetheless. We were completely engrossed in each other and in May of 1996 we officially became BF/GF again. Those few months of my life were the most intense. I have never in my life been so in love and in such a deep relationship. To tell you the truth it scared me to death so I did what any normal person would do...I ran like hell! I broke his heart and mine in the process, and looking back on it now...it was the best thing I could have done for the both of us.
We finished out HS remaining friends, but only talking when we had class together. I missed him so much, but I needed to keep him out of my life. The fear of getting married right out of hs and never experiencing life outside of Myrtle Beach was way too scary for me.
After HS ALOT of life happened to us both: college, new friends, new towns, new jobs, new relationships, loss of grandparents (and my Dad), hard times, easy times, fun times and times we would love to forget. We shaped ourselves into the adults you know today, and I think (at least for me) took the long hard road to get there.
It was August 2006...roughly 10 years after our break-up that I checked my email and saw that Marc had found me through a social network site, but I did not immediately reply. Life was happening to me...and not in a good way. In October I would lose my father to cancer and settle in for the hardest round of Winter holidays of my life. Finally in late January 2007 I made the effort. I gave him my phone number so that I could share with him the sad news of my father's passing and the bittersweet acceptance of a marriage proposal by my current boyfriend Mike. It took Marc exactly 3 hours to call me, and with that first Hello came a flood of emotions and that butterfly feeling that I had not felt since my youth.
After 3 weeks of secret calls we decided that we had to meet. I was willing and ready to gamble my entire future with Mike just to sort out my feelings for Marc. I loved him! I never stopped loving him and I needed to see if I was making the right or wrong decision.
In February 2007 I arrived at the house of Bill and Nance Meeker...a home I had not been inside for almost 12 years. I knocked on the door and looked through the glass at Marc, smiling to myself and knowing that this was about to be one intense reunion. Have you ever had that love sick butterfly feeling so strongly that you feel like you are going to vomit? Well that about sums up my feelings of that reunion.
The weekend was a romantic blur after which we decided that we WERE going to be together and make it work. I left him and went back home to Reston, VA and proceeded to destroy everything I had built there. I quit the best job I had ever had, hugged my very best friends goodbye and gave Mike everything. The ring, the house...everything! I just wanted freedom.
It was one week later that I was in my new home in Nashville, TN. The beginning was tough as I spent most days morning the loss of my old life, but over time our love has gotten stronger and we have grown. We have made friends with some amazing people, bought a home and new cars, adopted fur children and become established. It has been a crazy and beautiful whirlwind and I feel so blessed to be with the man that I fell in love with all those years ago. Nothing beats the comfort of home, and Marc is my life, my heart and my home.

Here we are now in May 2010 and I have married the boy that captured my heart 15 years ago, and held on for dear life!