6 Years Ago

What seems to be 6, very long, years ago on January 13, 2004, was the day I laughed in Jeff’s face.

Let’s go back a couple of months before that..

I was at Full Sail. And so was he. Amazingly enough, we met because I needed a flashlight for one of my first classes (because Full Sail apparently can’t afford flashlights) and he had one. I went to his place to get his.. a PURPLE flashlight, none the less. And the flashlight is in our house somewhere to this day.

We began hanging out right before Thanksgiving 2003. I invited him to come to my family Thanksgiving since all of his family was in Kentucky and he said.. no .. he wanted to stay and spend time out of school with his friends. Which is fine. Him and I had no obligations to each other. We were honestly just friends. Before I left to go to Ocala, he told me to come over because he had something for me. That something was a couple of burned CDs. At the time, there was always commercials for the Red Hot Chili Peppers greatest hits CD all over TV and he decided that I needed it since I would mention it.

Then came Christmas and New Year’s. He went home to see his family and I went to see mine. He called me at midnight, Florida time, to wish me a happy new year, but when I called him back at HIS New Year’s an hour later, he was passed out. Surprise surprise!

I found out later that Jeff’s mom was wondering who I was since we were always on the phone. And I can honestly say, we were still JUST friends.

Even though we lived a mile from each other, we were ALWAYS on the phone. He would get home from school and call me, and vice versa. One of my all time favorite memories from back then was when we were on the phone and Family Guy would come on. He’d wait until after the opening came on to get off the phone and he’d always say “I’ll call you back after the show.” And he always did. RIGHT after the show, as soon as the credits started rolling my phone would ring.

I always made jokes with him about him coming over to my apartment and watching ‘Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’ (this is when that show was huge!). No such luck. Ever. Then, he came over for a movie marathon of sorts. He stayed up ALL night and watched movies. It was great. And it was that night that he kissed me. And when he did.. I laughed. (Sorry dearest!)

I was uncomfortable because… dun dun dun.. it was my first kiss. Weird right? I had never had a boyfriend and I had only gone on a couple of “dates” (it’s hard for me to even call them that because they were just very awkward and strange guys.)

So, it happened. We kissed and I guess that made it “official”. We were always together. He didn’t have a car, so I would go get him and we would just hang out.

Then a little more than two weeks later, life changed. We had THE accident. Even though it majorly damaged his face (not that you can tell now), I wouldn’t change it for the world. It made us who we are today as a couple. And it also made us super strong, together.

Then

And now (or a few months ago)