Thank you, God.

I will be honest as I usually am. Mike is the love of my life. I love him with all of my heart. I never want to be without him. However, he is not the first person I ever loved. When we first started dating I told him I had never been in love before. As soon as the words left my mouth I knew they were a lie. What I meant to say was that I had never had a serious relationship and even the stupid little nothing relationships were few and far between. The reason the relationships were virtually nonexistent was simple. I had been in love before and I had my heart broken. You see, if you know me well you know that I am an extremely passionate person. I feel emotions with my whole being and while that can be amazing it can also be tortuous. I love fiercely. I am extremely loyal and protect my relationships that I care about.

So here is the story. As I have talked about here before I was not treated well by males and I learned to fear men at a very young age. To me, males could not be trusted. Several males in my life had lied to me. Men that I trusted. Men that meant the world to me. Boys touched in bad ways. They said nasty things. Older men leered. They said nasty things too. I mentioned to you the 8th grade Bible teacher of mine who had a crush on me. In the middle of that traumatic experience I met a boy. A nice boy. At first this boy was just an acquaintance but we ended up in a band together and ended up becoming friends. This boy called me a lot. We would talk for hours. He wrote me letters. He made me laugh. He said nice things. He said he thought I was pretty and talented and had the best personality. He wrote beautiful music and played songs that he had written for me to sing. I was young but I found myself deeply in love. I had had crushes before. This was no crush. This was me knowing someone, really seeing him and loving what I saw. He looked out for me. He was a popular guy and he exalted me to the pedestal of the elite "A" list of people in our class.We slow danced at parties and in his arms I felt safe for the first time. I thought he was perfect.

In ninth grade I was crushed when my parents took me out of school. It was the first year I was to experience homecoming. I waited my whole life for homecoming and now I was going to miss it. I was devastated that I wouldn't see him as much. I knew our friendship would suffer. I was terrified of letting him go. I couldn't imagine my life without him. At that point he was the only good thing. Unbelievably, he was the one who kept up our friendship. He continued to call. He still invited me places. I couldn't believe it.

The summer before tenth grade was the best of my life. I was just discovering my love for U2 and one night in my sister's car we sat with the windows down looking at the stars listening to Achtung Baby. As we sat there talking I was intoxicated by both the music and the magic of the moment. I know that sounds stupid but sometimes there is no other way to describe a moment that is just so perfect. Like it had been written in a book or we were actors in a movie. I felt the deepest overwhelming love for him. I knew that I was about to experience my first kiss and it would be perfect. Just as that electric tension between us was about to overwhelm me a knock on the door broke the spell. A kid that had a crush on me asked if he could join us. We looked at each other and I mumbled something as the intruder hopped into the back seat. Perfect moment ruined.

At the end of the summer he called me to tell me that he had gotten us tickets to see U2. When I hung up the phone I cried. I was so overwhelmed with joy. My favorite band with the one I loved. The day of the show I fretted over what to wear. I had found a box with my dad's old 45 records and I listened to Elvis's I Can't help falling in love with you over and over.

The show was amazing. I have seen several U2 shows since and none compare to that show. As an encore the band played Love is Blindness. My favorite. As a second encore they played I can't help Falling in love with you. I cried. I hid my tears but I cried. It was a sign. We were meant to be together.

I ended going back to school that fall. Just two weeks after the show. Things were great for a month. When Homecoming time came around I thought that I would go with him. He asked if I had a date. I told him that someone asked me but I had said no. Of course it was because I was holding out for him but I didn't tell him that. I mustered my courage and said,"we could go together as, you know, friends or something". He cleared his throat and said,"Yeah, that would be fun but I was actually thinking of asking _______." I said,"Oh that's great". I made an excuse to get off of the phone. I put my head into my pillow and sobbed. Something in me broke. I felt hurt and betrayed. I thought he loved me. He did love me. I know he did. When had things changed? In retrospect I realize that he did nothing wrong. He was a good friend. I should have seen that.

At school the next day I saw him walking towards me. He smiled and started to say something and I turned and walked away. I turned around and looked at him and he looked confused. He made several more attempts to talk to me and I avoided him each time. I needed time to heal. however something took over. It was a fear. He had hurt me and I couldn't handle the overwhelming emotion. I loved him so much it hurt and I wanted to be with him but he didn't want me in the same way. That knowledge was too great to bear. At class I would sneak glances at him. I would pretend to look at the clock so I could turn around and catch a glimpse of his face. I wanted to talk to him. I couldn't.

As the school year progressed our friendship slipped away. The very thing I was afraid of was happening and I was doing it. I was driving it away yet there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried to will myself to talk to him. I couldn't smile at him. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. My friends would tell me that I was hurting him and he didn't know why. It was as if my mouth was glued shut.

He started dating other people. Guys liked me but I wouldn't give them the time of day. My heart belong to another yet I wouldn't let him near it. It was torture. The thing I wanted most I sabotaged so I couldn't have it. It was insane.

At the end of the school year he wrote a nice message about wanting to be friends again in my year book. I felt sheer joy as I wrote him a letter and gave it to Jason Latshaw who was a friend of this guy and dating my sister. Jason said that the guy was really happy to get it. In the letter I explained how much I wanted to be friends. I geared myself up to see him the next day.

Later the next day we were at graduation and he came up to me and shook my hand. He asked me a question and I felt the debilitating fear creep over me like a dark shroud. I screamed at myself in my head." TALKED TO HIM YOU IDIOT! YOU ARE RUINING EVERYTHING!" I acted aloof and I saw that sad and confused look on his face as he turned around and walked away. Jason came up to me and said something similar to what I had screamed to myself. I knew I had blown my last chance at happiness.

Later that summer he called to tell me that he was moving away with his family. He said that he hoped to see me before he left. I said that I would get together with him. Then I found out that my parents were taking me on a trip that would last the whole summer. Damn my luck. While I was away, he moved. I never got to say goodbye. Then I got the tragic news that my friend, who had been instrumental in me and this boy becoming friends and had been a friend since childhood was killed in a car accident. My heart broke in a way that it never had and I experienced a pain that was worse than anything I had ever felt. Now I mourned for another friend that had moved on that I would never see again.

Later that year we exchanged a letter or two. The year after that he came back to visit and I saw him briefly. It wasn't the same. It never was the same. We lost contact after that. That is when the dreams started. He was there and I was trying to reach him and for some reason I just never could.

I never fully let him go. I still had unresolved feelings and it still stung years later when I heard he had gotten married. Still stung when I heard he had kids. I still felt that he was meant to be with me and I had ruined it. The old proverbial "One that got away".

When Mike and I re-met and started dating and fell in love and got married I was happy. The happiest I had ever been. There was still this twinge of sadness every now and then and I continued to have the dreams. How sick is that? 14 years after the last time we spoke and I still had dreams. I went to therapy. Still had the dreams. I talked to Mike about it. Still had the dreams.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to put things to rest. I looked up this guy on facebook and low and behold there he was. I friended him. When he accepted the request I took a deep breath and looked at the pictures on his profile. I stared in disbelief because his looks are much altered. I started to laugh. I laughed extremely hard. I felt mean for laughing but I was laughing because I was holding on to the image of a 16 year old. I read some of his thoughts on things and I laughed harder. We had very little in common. A Weight lifted off of me and I felt as if I had experience 18 years of therapy in five minutes.

I looked up and saw Mike across the room. He looked at me and smiled and sang a little song he wrote about me that he only sings when we are alone. I was struck by how great his love is. How he loves me, all of me, not in spite of who I am but because of it. He is perfect for me in every way. I walked over to the sofa and gave him a kiss and he put his arms around me. I felt safe. The kind of safe that can't be stolen away by fear and the kind of love that wouldn't be taken away by a mistake or by hurt feelings. I realized that although Mike wasn't my first love he is the best love and the last love I will ever need. Thank you, God.

i'm okay.

This has been a fun weekend. On Friday we went to British Belle tea for wine tasting and dinner. Saturday we went to Brian and Nina's and had lovely dinner followed by hot tub balloon volleyball. It is the only volleyball I am good at and the only one I enjoy playing. Sunday we went to Wyomissing, hometown of Taylor Swift, to spend the afternoon and evening with my parents, Aunt, Uncle, cousin and a bunch of their drunk relatives. We ate some delicious steamers (clams and butter) and some equally delicious low country boil. We were told some stories about Taylor Swift when she was young because my cousin was friends with her when she was around 10. My cousin is a few years older. Today we went to Oktoberfest.

Blah blah blah. here is what I really want to say. I don't know if I want children. I finally admitted to myself that I really wanted to have a baby because I felt like I should and people keep asking me about it. When are you going to have kids? So, are you guys thinking about kids? Have you thought about kids? Do you guys want to have kids? I have been asked in many ways and frankly I feel like saying, "I'm infertile but thanks for asking". The point is not whether or not we want kids but whether or not we can conceive and right now and for the past 4 years the answer has been no. If someone doesn't have kids then they are either not trying to have kids at the moment or they are and it isn't going well. Either way, do you really think someone wants to talk about it? Cause I don't. I really don't. I am okay when a close friend asks but basically my closest friends know whats going on with me and don't have to ask.

I am selfish. I really need a lot of sleep. I love that I am the center of Mike's world. We are trying to save money to move out of the city and buy a nice house. Our child could be a serial killer. We could really mess a kid up. There are a myriad of reasons.

Maybe I do want a child someday. It doesn't even matter because I CAN'T CONCEIVE. DARN IT ALL TO HECK! I am so sick of caring about it. I just have to let it go for now and focus on becoming healthy. I keep losing my focus but I will not be happy with anything unless I lose weight. I know that in my heart.

So that i what I want to say. I am fully aware that my writing has been really bad for awhile now but I don't actually care much about that either. Sorry.