I suppose I should begin this story in high school, where Josh and I met each other. We did not date, we were not even great friends...but we did know each other, we had classes together and we spoke almost every day. Josh had a steady girlfriend all four years of high school and let me tell you something: that couple was the envy of the entire school. She was cute and petite and blonde and he was the (extremely) attractive, athletic, (extremely) attentive boyfriend. Every girl was jealous...including me. But I did not want to be "her"...I just wanted to see him be happy. He was everything a boyfriend should be in high school: accommodating, doting, standing around bored while she chit chatted with her girlfriends, in other words: arm candy. I could tell he was unhappy, but I am not now nor have I ever been a "homewrecker" so I just accepted the fact that he was not available to me and went on with my life.
When I was in high school, I was the butterfly. Toes in every possible place they could be. I was in dance classes, I had one of the 20 positions in the advanced choir, I managed the men's lacrosse teams (all four levels), I was in a crazy amount of AP classes. Basically, at my high school, things that would make "normal" kids seem nerdy and overworked, made kids at my high school seem "cool." Hmm...well, despite all that, I had friends in every arena. Some of my friends were downright hoodlums and I began ditching classes more and more frequently. I would choose my 2 dance classes to ditch because if you missed a P.E class, you had to make it up after school in the weight room. I did this on purpose, because I knew that's where Josh would be...and where his girlfriend definitely would not be. Over the course of our Junior and Senior years, Josh and I did a lot of working out together. He would coach me on the proper ways to do certain things and we would just talk. After we graduated, I figured I would never see him again.
However, as fate would have it: one day, I was walking back to my dorm room and I saw an (extremely) attractive guy sitting all alone on the planters outside. Much to my surprise, I learned that Josh and I had chosen the same college! We were both there to become high school teachers. I saw him that day and he gave me a big hug, and I never saw him again! I was so disappointed, but life started getting a little crazy for me then so I did not really have time to process it. Right during finals week, my family started falling apart. My parents began an extremely messy divorce which involves details much too personal for blogging about right now. Basically, my mom was going from a married woman with a stable lifestyle to a single woman with only the supplemental income from her in home daycare job to support her. There was no question in my mind: I moved home, after one semester of college and began a full time job at a local shoe store. It was heartbreaking to me, not only to see my family literally falling apart at the seams, but to be at home working while all my friends were busy pursuing their dreams. Looking back now, it doesn't sound nearly as tragic as it felt, but it was hard. I was on Myspace late one night, just being sad when I noticed that I had a message.
I am sure you can guess who it was from. Turns out, Josh had moved to a different school after that day that I had seen him, he had decided to go to the same college as his girlfriend in an attempt to salvage their relationship. When he got there, he discovered she was showing some strong interest in another guy. (That's my nice way of putting what really happened FYI)...and heartbroken, Josh had moved back to our hometown. Here we both were, broken and stranded in a town working full time jobs with no clear cut future ahead of us anymore.
He invited me over to watch a movie with him that night, so I made my way into my mom's bedroom and said, "you'll NEVER guess who is talking to me!" When I told her Josh from high school, she automatically said, "The cute weight room guy?" Haha, bless her. She remembered. So I dolled myself up at 10:00 PM and made the short drive to his house. It was a Friday, and when I walked in I was introduced to his mom. She was holding the tiniest, most beautiful baby I had ever seen! Josh's baby sister Scarlet, who was only 3 months old at the time. I also met his other sister Priscilla, who REALLY wanted to watch the movie with us. She was 6. And cute. And really sassy, I fell in love with her immediately. Josh and I watched Top Gun (lol!) and he held my hand. We didn't really even talk that first night, but I had butterflies. That night was February 19th, 2006.
This is Josh and I on one of our first dates: a hike to Estes Park.
Our relationship was like a whirlwind after that. Because Josh had truthfully JUST lost his high school sweetheart, he probably should not have even opened himself up for a relationship so soon. But, he did and it caused a lot of problems early on in our time together. He still had feelings for her, she kept coming back into the picture...basically, it was a huge, immature mess. But, we were only 18/19 so I suppose pretty typical. After about TWO years of being on again and then off again just about every month or so (I am positive we drove our friends and families crazy), our situation finally came to an abrupt and seemingly final end. I had quit my job to become the full time nanny of his two little sisters when his mom needed some desperate help. I loved that time spent with them, they were some of the best moments of my life...and I also grew extremely close to the rest of Josh's family. But, that made things really uncomfortable when we weren't getting along. Josh's family did not know who to "side with"...which sounds terrible, but I had become almost like another daughter to his mom. When things ended, I had to stop watching his sisters to make things less uncomfortable for him.
The Christmas before the big break. With Josh's big family.
From Left: Josh's brother Nick, his girlfriend, Josh's brother Luke holding baby Scarlet, Josh holding me and Priscilla in front.
From Left: Josh's brother Nick, his girlfriend, Josh's brother Luke holding baby Scarlet, Josh holding me and Priscilla in front.
We lasted maybe 5 months apart from each other. It was over the summer and for some stupid reason, we kept hanging out with each other throughout that summer, despite the fact that we were not together. We were supposed to be figuring ourselves out alone but we kept running back to each other. It was a rough summer. Josh went through a phase where he just wanted to be young and single, which should have been fine, except that usually, I was there to witness it. Truthfully, we were incredibly immature and mean sometimes and we caused a lot of unnecessary damage to each other. Lets just say lots of liquor was involved that summer.
Josh and I during the "drunk summer" I'm sure you could not tell.
I truthfully do not even really remember how we came back together. At some point, I pulled away entirely and started doing my own thing and so did he. I had landed a job as a manager at a crazy place that threw birthday parties for kids. Not like Chuck e Cheese, it was aimed more towards very RICH people, so you can use your imagination. That job sucked up my entire LIFE. I worked 65+ hours a week. I know that doesn't seem possible, but there were times I literally considered sleeping at my desk so I would take advantage of the 6 hours before I had to be there again. One day, Josh stopped by my work. By this point, all my co-workers knew our story and they were seriously lined up at the windows watching our conversation. I was mad, I was hurt and I was kind of unwilling to go through that again. But so much of me was because of Josh and he just looked so.damn.good in that black T shirt he was wearing. (He had become a personal trainer).
We got back together and had a magical relationship from that point forward. We knew everything about each other, we had lived together, we had broken each other and we LOVED each other more than I ever could have imagined. Other dreams in life may not have worked out for us, but we had each other.
When we were together about 3 years total (we count the on and off times too because its too hard not to, seeing as how we were always around each other)...we started talking about what was next. I was still working way too hard and so I did not really know what was coming. On my 22nd Birthday, Josh took me to a crab legs dinner, and back to a beautiful suite in a hotel. I was shocked that I was getting spoiled so much, but did not really think much about it. He popped open a bottle of wine and walked over with two glasses on a tray with a little burgundy box open in the middle. He set the tray down on the table in front of me and got down on one knee. Before words even came out of his mouth, I was crying. I was shocked. Side note: I had made poor Josh's life difficult several times that night by not wanting to do what he had planned. So, word for word he proposed to me like this, "Even though you are a pain in the ass, I Love you so much much...will you marry me?"
Me Crying with my new ring on. Please excuse the terrible face!
Hah. Our story is completely unique and so is our proposal. We are getting married October 1, 2010. After 4.5 years of this crazy, amazing roller coaster relationship.
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