How It All Started

My high school sweetheart, sort of, found me last year, and now we are together.  

I say sort of, because we never dated (again, sort of), but had crushes on each other all through high school, and always thought about each other over all these years.

We met the first day, and the first class of the day, of our freshman year, September 5, 1972.  I will never forget it.  I was terrified...high school!! I was in high school!  I walked into Mr. Palmer's health class and Sweet Boy was already seated. The only empty desk was next to him, on his right. I will never forget what happened next.  The INSTANT I laid eyes on him, it felt like A lightning bolt hit me! I had looked at other boys before, but nothing like that had ever happened to me, before or since.

From that moment on, I adored him. He was tall and lanky, probably close to 6 feet by then, soft brown eyes, and longish brown hair. And bashful as can be. 

The Carpenter's song, Next to You, was popular at that time, and my heart broke a little each time I heard it play, because I wanted so badly to be his. You see, we both dated other people but never worked up the nerve to ask each other out.  I don't think we ever said two words to each other.  I wrote his and my names all over my binder and Peechees, drew hearts and stars all around his picture in my yearbook and went to his football games.

My Sweet Boy went off to the Marines.  When he came back, he found me at school and asked me to Junior Prom.  I was over the moon excited.  Two weeks before prom, he called and told me he couldn't go, that he had to go overseas.  

When he got back again, he asked me to the Marine Corp Ball, their 200th birthday. It was a big deal, very formal. We went on three or four more dates and he asked me to be promised to him.  And what did I say?!?!? No.

I said no. 

We went our separate ways and the years passed. Forty-one to be exact. 

And then, the morning of March 9, 2017, my life changed forever.

I got up that morning, got on to Facebook, and there he was.  He had friend requested me. I accepted and I lived on Messenger for the next month.