This One Time At Band Camp...

My fiance Easy is a musician. A very good one. He's also a teacher. A very good one.



Because he is these two things, he gets invited to teach at the NIU jazz camp every summer. He's there now. They bring in all these high school students and teach them amazing things.

A lot of his friends who I've met since we've been dating are also amazing musicians and teachers and they're there too. It's like a who's who of musicians who will be wedding guests (see how I still had to slip something wedding related in?).

Last year, right after we'd just met, I was heading up to Rockford to pack up my apartment since I was moving back to Chicago. Since I was in the area, Easy asked me to stop by and visit him there.

Back then, I felt like I was doing this crazy thing. It was literally the second night I've ever spent in a dorm. I never stayed in a dorm during college, except once during a slumber party with my girls. I didn't even stay in the dorn during orientation. Call be spoiled, call me bourgie, I just wasn't about to do it.

But now that I'm grown as hell and about to get married, I'm staying in a dorm. Planning on sleeping in a twin size bed for the second time in two summers. I must really really reeeeallly love this man, ya'll.

Six Degrees of Separation

Anyone ever found out their significant other dated someone you knew? How about someone you knew well? How about someone you knew really well?

Yeah, well that happened to Easy and I last weekend. We had already long ago discussed our past relationship history. Easy and I tend to over-share anyway, plus neither of us wanted the other to ever be in a situation to deal with surprises.

Easy has a friend from high school. They met up to hang out last weekend and Easy was telling this old friend from high school about his new fiancee. When he showed him a picture, the friend was surprised to find he knew the woman in the picture. He informed Easy that he knew me when I was in medical school.

Turns out I know this guy because I went on a couple of dates with one of his classmates in law school. When he and I discovered we had absolutely no chemistry and our involvement was going to go nowhere, I moved on... to another friend in their group. These guys weren't friends at all actually, but they moved in the same circle. I met the second guy through the first.

Moving on. This second guy is the one I dated for a number of months. He and I didn't work out because he had some habits I couldn't get over. We have remained friendly and Easy knew of this guy by name. I never mentioned his last name though. Apparently I should have because this guy went to high with Easy and the guy who recognized my picture.

Easy and I had a discussion about it on and off for a couple of days. He seemed pretty upset about finding out I dated someone he knew (years ago) and used to hang around (years ago). I got upset because I felt like it was his fault that it was a surprise. When he told me about his past relationships/dating folks, I asked follow up questions if there was a chance I knew them.

I ruled out names, professions, colleges, and ages. I know for a fact that I have a ton of degrees of separation between myself and these women. But he didn't do his due diligence. He recognized a name and college and just assumed it couldn't be the same guy.

We've settled the issue since then, but it was a lesson learned. Even with our over-sharing, it's possible to be surprised by information about our partner. He's fine that I'm still friendly with this guy because this guy know I'm engaged, and he's dating someone else now, so there's no torch-holding going on for me.

And this led to a discussion of our values about gender stereotypes and double standards. I won't get into it, but let's just say that there is some unequal judgement of pasts that was (is?) going on. Honestly, I'm just glad we're able to have these discussions no matter how uncomfortable because we know that there's nothing either of us could say to make us change our minds about spending the rest of our lives together.

Gonna Get Married, But There's More To My Life, Part 1

I have only 8 1/2 months to plan a wedding! Yikes! What was I thinking?!?!

Well, I know what I was thinking. I love Easy so much, and I wanted to press fast forward on the process toward becoming his wife as much as possible. Still having a wedding that falls 1 year 7 months 9 days after we first met is pretty good timing I think. I'm just glad Easy agreed with me that moving forward at this speed is the best idea for the two of us.

That being said, there are other things going on in my life. 1. Men I used to date who still don't know I'm engaged yet. 2. Looking for an apartment. 3. Settling into this new job and the financial situation that goes along with it.

1. Yeah... so I didn't send out some sort of mass text to everyone I've ever talked to that may or may not pop back up again. I think that would just be odd. And since I'm not on Facebook, I don't have the benefit of spreading the news simply by changing my relationship status.

So what is my plan of action? I figure I'll tell them if and when they pop up. Except two got ahead of schedule; instead of popping up after the engagement, they popped up a few days before I was engaged.

One is my ex-boyfriend from college, who I have referred to as Light in my other blog, texted me to see how I was last week. I feel like I should tell him because we have so many mutual friends and I'm sure he will be offended if he doesn't hear it from me. But we only catch up every couple months or so.

Since we caught up last week, I'm wondering if I should call him up to tell him or wait until the next time it's reasonable to be back in contact and risk him hearing it from someone else? I only care because our break-up and subsequent roller coaster friendship cause quite a bit of hullabaloo amongst our college friends.

I don't want to once again be the asshole who didn't consider Light's feelings in the situation. Plus, if he were getting married, I'd like to know. Actually, I don't care, but I feel like I should care, you know?

Then there's PT. This is the guy I was still-sort-of-dating-but-definitely-still-liking when I met Easy. In fact, I wrote an interesting post comparing the two men that you can read here (sorry for bringing that back up Easy). PT popped up again right before I got engaged wanting to catch up.

I mentioned in a previous blog post that we planned on going for coffee but I have PT firmly in my unreliable category, so I didn't expect that we'd actually catch up. But he texted me again to set a specific time for Thursday evening to go have coffee. I feel like somewhere in there I should have mentioned the life changes, but all I mentioned was the new job. It just felt... weird... to bring it up via text. And when we first talked about meeting to catch up, there was no engagement.

Waiting to say, "I'm in a relationship now" makes sense. Waiting to say, "I'm engaged now" makes less sense. But the major concern is that I met Easy before PT and I were done. We were fizzling out, but weren't done yet.

When we fizzled out, I figured I'd never have to hear from him again except for the next time Cody Ross (google him, he's awesome) does something fantastic, and even then it wouldn't be to catch up, it would be a quick conversation that wouldn't include information about either of our lives.

If I'm lucky, he'll have a girlfriend and simply be interested in being one of those people who stays friends with all his old flames.

I wish Easy were the type of guy who was against staying friends with exes. But both he and I are pretty nonchalant about it. I'm nonchalant cause I mostly don't care to maintain those friendships myself, but I'm not the jealous type. He does in fact maintain those friendships, but he's also not jealous. So I have no reason not to try and make the best of these interesting situations.

I coffee tomorrow goes well and drama free, I may take the plunge and call up the ex from college before he hears it from someone else. And then I'll handle anyone else who pops up out of the woodwork as they arise. I guess that's what happens when I go through an.. abridged.. process towards the altar.

My friends who date people for like 5 years don't have these issues.

Quick Highlights of My Florida Trip

I really should be sleep right now, but I'm not, so I figured I'd write a post since I haven't had time all weekend. I will write a real post when I have the time, but I wanted to share some highlights.

1. After stalking ebay, and begging my parents to help me get my camera in Florida that came to Chicago, I started taking lots of photos. That led me to make a Flckr account. I added the photostream to my blog page and there's a link where you can check out all my photos I've added. It has the higlights from this weekend.

2. I've been having so much fun. I feel old as hell though! I forget sometimes that the people I know here go all the way back, like 8 years ago. Long time, but good times.

3.  It was the best decision ever to leave from Tallahassee even though we flew into Jacksonville. Not having to get a ride 2.5 hours away before our flight will make everyone's life easier in the afternoon.

4. When I get back to St. Louis, I have to rush off to Chicago because I have a meeting with the director of the company I interviewed with two Thursdays ago. They told me two weeks, but they really liked me, so they wanted me to come in as soon as I got back from out of town. That probably means something great!

5. This is totally random, but I miss my cat Belle. I'm just used to her crawling all over me while I'm blogging or reading articles on the internet. I miss my bossy co-dependent cat.

6. I've been eating so unhealthily these last few days. I always lambasted the food in Tallahassee, but there are places I just had to go to and get food from that I can't get outside of here. Zaxby's, Chubby's, and Captain D's. I know they have them other places, but not Chicago, and they just speak FAMU to me. I have to decide tomorrow if I'm going to go to Hip Hop Fish and Chicken, Moe's, Firehaus, or Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Probably the last one. I'd love a smoothie and a caesar chicken wrap. That's not as healthy as it sounds.

7. In spite of my diet, I did get in a run while here. It was so hot though I got overheated, but I was glad to be able to keep working out and maintaining (in some form or another) my healthy living.

I'll blog more later. But right now I'm going to watch Enchanted for the 184th time and go to sleep.

Things That Used To Matter So Much

I was having a text conversation with Lion recently, and he brought up a very interesting point. Some things that used to matter so much are usually looked back on in the memory as not nearly as important.


Take, for instance, our senior year as undergraduates. Our Chemistry department had what was called "Seminar". Each student had to give a seminar on a topic of chemistry. The professors would come if they felt like it. Friends and classmates would come to support, or see the impending massacre, and then it began.


A harmless presentation, meant to show one's expertise in some corner of Chemistry, followed by an assault on that knowledge. Those who picked topics in Biochemistry were screwed because it seemed that every Biochem professor showed up on that day. How serious was this? Well you needed a passing grade on your seminar to graduate. Some people didn't graduate. Grad school, leaving Tallahassee, getting a real job, all delayed because of some arbitrary assignment placed dangerously near the end of one's last semester of school.


So of course, when Lion and I discussed it, we didn't remember it at all as being worthy of such seriousness. He and I both aced our seminars. But we were sort of the darlings of the department. We had professors lined up to help. One helped make the seminar, another listened for content, another listened for style. But the time we got to the day, we were good.


I picked Analytical Chemistry because the only professors who taught it loved me and knew I was supposed to start med school that fall. For Lion, he picked Biochemistry. Some thought he was foolish, but I knew better. It was the Biochem professors who loved him the most (he just didn't get Analytical Chemistry), plus he was good at Biochemistry. Like really good. And he didn't want to have to learn new stuff he'd managed not to learn yet.


The days of our seminars arrived and I gotta be honest, the only thing I remember is Lion screwing up one question about Eastern blots. And if you know what I mean by that, you are my favorite blog reader. But our seminars went waaaaay better than some of our other classmates. That type of success would make one forget how serious something once seemed. Even after ours were done, it still felt so serious for the other people. I wonder how those people (especially those who didn't do well) feel about the seminar. I wonder does time heal all wounds. And now, a list!


10 Reasons Things Seem Less Serious After The Fact

1. You got through it with no major (or minor) disasters.
2. People keep telling you how great things went, over time replacing your memory of how it went.
3. Because something was scary, you tried harder and got an undeniably better result.
4. Even if it was bad for you, it was worse for someone else, so by comparison...
5. You had a great support system that you unfortunately undervalued at the time.
6. You had something big riding on it and those standing in your way were more inclined to not make your life hell.
7. You always trump things up in your head. Upon review, it wasn't that serious.
8. You let the failure of those before you (no matter how unprepared they may have been) scare you.
9. Herd mentality. Everyone says it's serious, it must be.
10. Faulty memory. It's why women with low pain tolerances have multiple children. Your memory (or lack thereof) is soothing you into a false sense of comfort.

Any other reasons I missed?

In My 20s Tuesday + Post-It Notes

In My 20s Tuesday is all about things that should matter (maybe) to someone in their 20s. It's about life as we head into real adulthood. It's about laying the groundwork for a life: starting a career, setting up a home, starting a life with someone, etc. It's about things that will affect our lives down the road: politics, current events, pop culture, etc. Well, it's not about all those things at once (that'd be near impossible, lol). But hopefully it will reach someone in their 20s who's looking for someone to feel them and what they're going through. Here goes!

 

 

This post idea came up in a very roundabout way. My car radio has been off forever because I left the lights on and had to get a jump and Honda has this security thing where the radio won't work if the power is cut. I've been far too lazy about getting it fixed. But while losing my mind in traffic today I finally called the 800 number to get the code to turn it back on.
 

Joyously happy to have radio and CD abilities in my car again, I put in my India.Arie CD Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics and enjoyed her music. Even though I put the album on my iTunes, I mostly only listen to it on CD in my car. As I was singing along, this song same on with the line "it heals me just to hear you say 'I love you' ".

 

Then it hit me. It's been a long time since anyone has told me they loved me and meant romantic love. PT hasn't said it and I'm quite sure doesn't feel it (that works cause I don't love him yet either). This guy I dated off an on after the Ex never said it. The Ex went out of his way to make sure I knew he didn't love me. An ex from high school who popped up a couple years ago still never said it. My rebound guy from Light sure as hell wouldn't have gone there. The last person to tell me they loved me was Light. We broke up in 2006.

 

It's been four fucking years since anyone has been in love with me. I truly understand why that scorned woman bitterness creeps up along the edges occasionally. I try my darnedest not to be, but it's hard. I'm a Libra for Christ's sake! We love to be in love and I've been very deprived for years now. I'm too young for this shit!

 

Okay, rant over. But seriously, doesn't that suck? Someone my age who's enjoying life in her mid 20s shouldn't be love deprived. I'm certainly not man deprived. I must be doing something wrong. I can clearly pinpoint what that wrong thing was with a couple of the men. At certain times, I wasn't looking for love, at least not from them. But since that's what I want now, I need to figure out how to balance being open to that with letting it happen naturally.

 

The last thing I want it to give a Carrie-style speech to PT like the one Carrie gave to the Russian at the end of the Sex and the City television show. That would suck, and be so out of character for me, lol.

In My 20s Tuesday + Post-It Notes

In My 20s Tuesday is all about things that should matter (maybe) to someone in their 20s. It's about life as we head into real adulthood. It's about laying the groudwork for a life: starting a career, setting up a home, starting a life with someone, etc. It's about things that will affect our lives down the road: politics, current events, pop culture, etc. Well, it's not about all those things at once (that'd be near impossible, lol). But hopefully it will reach someone in their 20s who's looking for someone to feel them and what they're going through. Here goes!


 

 
This post is inspired by Classy In Philadephia's blog. She's currently writing a series of blogs about her years of college since she graduates on Thursday! Her blog is great, I think most everyone who reads my blog also reads hers, but if you don't, she's so cute and funny, check it out!
 
I was inspired by her blog to finally post about something really big that happened in my life and has played a large role in defining who I am. Lots of us 20-somethings go through experience in "the college years" that become a part of how we define ourselves. This usually happens whether or not we actually go to college.
 
What happened to me is the story of how Adam and I ended. I've mentioned him a lot more on my other blog, Simply.Saucy.Sexy., than I have on this one or even my blog about my love life. Mostly because my blog focuses a lot on the present rather than six years ago. But, feeling inspired, I am going to tell the story.
 
My freshman year of college was the first time I learned about Relay for Life. I went because I had family members battling cancer, and I was so glad that I had Adam there with me (there's actually a mention of him a couple posts, but the one I linked is probably the most interesting). He and I spent so much time together and I leaned on him to get through feeling helpless by being all the way in Florida while my great-grandmother was in Chicago sick.
 
I went on March 20, 2004 to visit her, basically to say goodbye. Top was supposed to give me a ride to the airport, but she had left her cell phone in her room and had the time wrong. Long story short, I missed my plane. By the time I got to Chicago, it was past visiting hours and I was told I'd have to go the next day. While having breakfast the next morning before going to see my grandma, we get the news that she passed during the night. I was devastated that I never got to say goodbye. But Adam, as always, was there to make me feel better.
 
Adam was from Memphis and I was from Chicago, so when we went home, we knew we weren't going to spend that much time together during the summer. In an effort to alleviate this, I took and internship in Nashville which wasn't super close to Memphis, but was a hell of a lot closer than Chicago. We spent a weekend together and it was lovely. Then we found out the apartment Adam wanted with his friends had come through. I decided to go down to Florida with him to help set up the apartment. His mother was on vacation in southern Florida and she was going to come up too to help get the place settled. His mother and I got along great so it was sure to be a lovely weekend. I wanted to be very considerate and not have him drive over to Nashville to come get me (missing most of Friday because I had class as part of the internship), so I decided to take Greyhound bus down to Florida after class and meet him.
 
On June 25, 2004, I spoke to him about 4:45 in the morning before he got on the road.I was texting him throughout class with no response, and then I called him while I was packing my bags and still no response. I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was wrong, but I shrugged it off. Finally, I had wondered myself into enough to worry to call another one of our friends who was also moving into the apartment to see if he knew where Adam was. He said he didn't know but that one of Adam's old roommates said he had heard something was wrong and I should call his mother to find out if he was in the hospital or something.
 
This really freaked me out, especially since I had just dropped my phone from the third floor to the first floor of the library two weeks prior and didn't have Adam's mother's cell phone number. I called my mother to get it from her and so had to relate the story before I knew the whole story. I headed to the bus station with full intentions of going to Florida (where I assumed Adam was). I told myself even if he had a bad accident and was now a paraplegic, I would still love him and stand by him no matter what. My mother finally called me back with his mother's number. I call her and tell her it's me and the first thing out her mouth is. "My baby is dead."
 
I immediately burst into silent tears as I listen to her tell me the story. About 30 minutes after he and I got off the phone, he got into a car accident. His car hydroplaned and went off the highway and into a tree (that had killed 4 others besides him up to that point. The tree has since been cut down). He died upon impact with the tree. I felt incredibly numb, just sitting there in the bus station. After I got off the phone with her, I went back outside and got a taxi back to campus. There was no need of going to Florida if his mother was on her way to Mississippi to get the body. I just went back to campus. I called my parents and our friend to inform them of what happened. I told my new friends at the internship what happened and then curled into a little ball on the bed all weekend. I did make occasional calls to important people who had lots of other's phone numbers so they could spread the word.
 
It was, to this day, the most painful thing I've ever felt. I cannot describe the hurt I felt to lose the first guy I had ever really loved in such a way. Even now, almost six years later, I can't think about it without wanting to cry, and hardly anything makes me want to cry. It's a very short list: Adam's death so close after my grandma's death, anytime my brother is rude to me, when I feel frustrated that I'm failing at something.
 

But I became stronger because of it. I finished my internship even though my parents thought maybe I should come home for the rest of the summer. I started a book scholarship in his name at our school that went to a member of our graduating class each semester. I worked hard at not being afraid to love again (experience since then has shown I didn't do too good a job of that). I didn't give up on my dreams even though I just wanted to stay curled in that little ball for the rest of forever. Sometimes, when it's just me all alone, I do curl up into that ball, and I forget that there are times when I don't remember how much I miss him.

 
I guess the moral of the story is, bad things happen. It sucks, it truly sucks, but it doesn't mean you can stop living your life to the fullesst. It means you deal with it the best way you know how, and you try and become a stronger person because of it. Anyone who can make it out of their 20s without going through something catastrophic is lucky indeed.

TMI Thursday!

***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!

So, I've learned my lesson about getting ideas for blogs and then forgetting them by the time I actually sit down to write my blog post. I have started using the notepad on my Blackberry, and it works quite well. Yay for me!
 
Today's post is about a New Year's party I threw back in 2005. It was my first New Year's as a 21 year old. All of my friend from church who were my age were all younger than me. My girl Top is a friend from church, and she is older than me, but she didn't hang out with the church people. But the church people that did hang out with each other decided it would be a good idea to throw a New Year's Eve Party. With alcohol. At a hotel. And since I was the only one who was 21, obviously that meant I was the one who had to rent the 2 (two!) rooms in my name.
 
I didn't invite anyone to this party because I was slightly embarrassed to be the person behind this underage drink-fest. But one of my friends was nearby with a date, and decided to stop through. It didn't take too long for the party to get out of control. People were going back and forth between the two rooms, and making lots of noise in the hallway. Someone had brought weed, and weren't being very discreet about smoking it. Top's younger cousin, who was like 18 at the time showed up. The average age had to be around 19. I was so sure I was going to jail, so of course I got very drunk to make it through the night.
 
Top's cousin got super drunk and then decided she wanted to go home. I tried to stop her from driving home, but did not succeed. So I left a drunken voice mail for Top explaining that I was sorry for possibly being responsible for her younger cousin's death by car accident.
 
Then a much-younger-than-me guy from my church who I rarely saw decided he wanted to mack on me. Again, he was like 18. But he was so cute and very persistent. So, when the clock struck midnight, he gave me a very public, very long, very involved kiss. I didn't stop him. After all, I was drunk and he was cute, and he still goes down in history as the best kisser I've ever kissed. The fact that I was drunk doesn't weigh much because I've kissed other people while drunk. But I really felt bad because I did have a boyfriend at the time who would've had a fit had he ever found out what I'd done.
 
And of course, the party got shut down before it was even 1 AM. One of the girls who helped pay for throwing the party called her cousin because many of us were too drunk to drive. So he rounded up a couple of his friends (still don't know why they weren't drunk. These people gave me my first drink almost 10 years ago...) and came to get us. Did I mention this guy was my pastor's son? Did I add he drove us to his grandmother's house so we could sober up?
 
Do I decided to take the guy who kissed me home (booo for drunk driving) and ended up staying there making out with him on his couch for hours and finally drove home after the sun came up. I didn't sleep with him because of guilt over cheating on the boyfriend. By the way, that new year's was on a Saturday night, so I still got up and went to church. I don't know how much the church people knew about that party, but no one ever said anything to me about it. But still, I took that as an example of what not to do on New Year's. From then on, I partied only with properly aged, non-weed-smoking people and I stopped kissing people who weren't my boyfriend, lol.

I Want Someone Who's Going to Notice When I'm Sick

So, me being me, I have a list in my head of things I want in a man and deal breakers. Deal breakers are those qualities/tendencies that when you find them, you run for the hills out of a sense of self-preservation. My list includes things like: chewing with one's mouth open; sinus issues that involve snorting in for 30 minutes in the morning (Lion used to do this all through college, I hated spending the night at his place leading up to a test); having a poor relationship with one's mother; complacency; the list goes on and on. Bad tells me that one of my downfalls is judging someone who has one of my dealbreakers before I know for sure whether I can deal with them having that flaw. Whatever, I say. I know what I can deal with. And thanks to PT, I have added another to the list.

I want someone who's going to notice when I'm sick. PT lives a very busy life. I knew that when I decided I wanted to take the time to get to know him better. He has a very demanding job and a daughter and lots of other things that take up his time. Consequently, there are times when we don't speak as often as I'd like. He keeps leaving me under then impression that this is happening occasionally and once he gets past some point in his life that is super busy, it will get better. But it just keeps getting worse. Each passing moment seems to be him having less and less time to bother trying to get to know me.

I think it really hit me when I woke up Monday with a sore throat. By Tuesday, I was really sick. I speak to PT so rarely that he had no idea I was sick. I'm still kinda sick. He only knows because I mentioned it in passing. I want someone who notices when I'm sick, gets concerned and brings me chicken soup. PT is not in a place to do that. I get that his life is busy, but damn. I can't be with someone who has no place in their life for me. I'm not going through that again. I just went through that with the Ex. I just don't yet know how to handle the situation. I don't know if I should be trying to talk to him in hopes of seeing a change or if I should just give up and walk away. I just really don't think I have the strength to go through this again with a guy...

TMI Thursday!!

This is my first TMI Thursday. I have lots of embarrassing moments to share, but I have to figure out the best...

***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!

Turns out the creator of this day has declared this her last TMI Thursday. Seeing as how it's my first, it may not also be my last, we'll see. Speaking of firsts, that gives me an idea for my TMI story.

So, my first real love was the guy I was dating my freshman year of college. We'll call him Adam. He and I both came to college with a relationship intact and all intentions of maintaining those relationships. Anyone who's gone to college trying to hold onto their high school sweetheart can comiserate. Anyway, we met, quickly became part of the same group of friends and then started hanging out. We lived the closest together of all our friends so we spent the most time together, but we didn't take the relationship any further than friendship until both of us were out of our previous relationships. I'm still very proud of that fact. After we both endured very painful breakups, we turned to each other for comfort. This guy became one of my best friends before he was ever anything else.

Where's the TMI part, you wonder? The things I had to go through to get and keep this guy now make me cringe with embarrassment. I consider myself an independent woman, but I more than bent over backwards to prove to him that I was right for him and he was right for me.

First, there was another girl in our group of friends who liked him. She wasn't in a relationship when she got to college. During one of our sleepover (imagine 13 eighteen year olds crammed onto the living room floor of a tiny tiny apartment, she made her move. I was laying near him and had to listen to them making out. Turns out they actually had sex the next week, but only the once (that's the story being stuck to til this day). I basically told him I knew it and then let it go for the sake of us. Yup, I should've been like, if you want her and she'll help you cheat on your girlfriend, I don't want any part of that, but I stayed and worked on our friendship.

Second, there was a girl in our pep team who like him. One trip we took to an away football game, she and I went and he didn't. I spent the night at his house the night before because I was sick. He made me soup and let me sleep in his bed so I could feel better. I woke up at about 10 pm to hear voices talking in his living room. She was there! I called him into the room to ask why she was there. He said they were friends and she just came over to hang out and I was sick and couldn't keep him company so I shouldn't mind. I was flabbergasted. When I re-read my diary from that year, I was feeling and thinking some pretty toxic things in that time period. But what did I do? I still fell asleep talking to him on the phone every night that weekend and he was the first person I went to see when I got back from the trip.

Third, when I went with him to visit his hometown around Easter, he confessed that he had cheated on me with his ex-girlfriend who he had sworn he hadn't spoken to since they broke up. We promised each other to cut off contact with our exes to give us a real chance. I had stuck to the promise, he had broken it in the worst way. What did I do? I thought about it for about 20 minutes and chose to forgive him as long as he promised not to do it again.

Don't get me wrong, I did my fair share of horrible things. They were mostly confined to sulking and starting arguments about things other than why I was really mad. But, I bent over backwards for a man I loved before I even loved him. I did things I'm ashamed of even now. 20 minutes!! Who forgives someone who apologizes about something they swore they'd never do in 20 minutes?! And I meant it too. I never brought it up to him again after that point. I'm prouf of my ability to truly forgive, but embarrassed by the depths I would go to for a man who didn't truly deserve it at the time.