The Story of Us

i was just talking with my dear lovely friend Saviabella and she wished B-rad and i a happy anniversary. i told her that my most awesome husband surprised me with flowers when i got home from work

throughout or talk, the discussion turned to how B-rad and i ended up together.

Sometimes our marriage, our entire relationship - is like magic. i forget that sometimes. it takes the retelling for me to remember how amazing it all is. But it wasn't an easy ride.
there was a period of real badness and heartache.

B-rad and i met in high school. you could say high school sweethearts, we did date for a few months in the ninth grade mostly over the summer. i knew there was something about him, even then. i knew i loved him. i told him that too, but when you're 15 - love is a very heavy subject. we didn't make it into the 10th grade. Even when i was dating other guys, i still watched for B-rad in the halls and made an effort to talk to him. We ended up 'hookin' up after graduation. We seemed to have the perfect relationship and we dated for a year and a half before the first break up.

the first time brad broke up with me, he broke my heart. i was completely blind-sighted and it hurt. i don't remember the exact reason why we broke up - but i think it had something to do with him not being sure about us.

SO i started seeing this other guy, evan, because i figured i might as well be with someone who wanted me.

then b-rad asked me to take him back

i said no

and i was horribly mean, i dated Evan for a couple of months; november and december - the whole time brad would call me and email me and call my friends.

i was terrible. i know that now, but i knew it then. i just wanted him to hurt the way i did.

i knew it was a mistake, i wanted to be with brad, but i didn't want it to be easy for him.

this guy, Evan, was so into me. We would go for walks in the snow, he would speak poetry and play me jazz music. he even wrote a cycle of songs for my voice which i performed at his Grad Recital.

then at christmas - i went with Evan to drive around Town and look at all the christmas lights - and then back to his place to exchange gifts. i made him a scarf. he made me this beautiful handmade book. i didn't even really open it - i didn't even say thank you. what i said was: "i'm still in love with b-rad. i cant do this, i'm sorry"

later, when i got home i opened the book, it was excerpts from his journal from the whole time we 'dated' and even before... about how he saw this girl who wears her hair in braids. it's really sweet book. i can't bear to ever throw it out, but i never want b-rad to read it. i don't know if he would understand. i think he would think that i'm keeping it because i still have some secret harboured feelings for Evan. i don't. not even a bit. but the book is just such a beautiful momento. i felt like a muse. like something from a fairy tale.

anyway, when i got home i went back to b-rad's, he made a fire, we sat in front of it and we decided to try again.

that was the first time we broke up.

i felt a kinda bad for Evan, but i wanted b-rad more and would do what it took to be with him.

the next break up was a little more complicated....

i broke up with him. i just. i don't know - i got sick. that's the only way to explain it - like everytime i thought of being with him i would feel physically ill.

it was weird, and heartbreaking at the same time.

i figured that it must be because he wasn't the one, and i told him that and it sucked. it makes me so sad just thinking of it.

i think, now, that it's because i wasn't ready for our relationship. we were really young, 20...21... and i wanted marriage and babies and i think subconciously my body was telling me 'not yet'.

i can't really remember a lot of the in between details. we were on again off again - taking turns breaking up with each other... then the day after my friend's Fourleafclover and Batman's wedding i told b-rad it was over, and that's when he decided it was too much and he moved to calgary.

How do you get back together after that?
i don't know?

it's like, there was this connection between us that we just couldn't shake.
neither one of us was really any good without the other.

it was something bigger than us.

we were just kids.

i mean, really, we were babies and it was so huge.

even when we didn't want to be together, somehow... without knowing how... the phone would dial itself and we'd be talking to each other again.

but when b-rad moved to calgary i thought it was done.

we didn't talk anymore, it was over.

then, one fateful new years eve, he got really drunk and emailed me. (thank God for booze and lack of inhibition) which opened the door of communication again. We decided that we really hadn't ever tried just being 'friends'.

so, we started a relationship by correspondence

emails, snail mail, mixed tapes, drawings

i saved all our old emails from that time, i just reread them a while ago ... we're so funny.

anyway, one day an email arrived saying the one thing i thought i was cool with: 'B-rad had a girlfriend'

i tried to be all like: That's so cool! good for you, i'm happy

but i couldn't see him with anyone but me.

i just couldn't. he was MY b-rad.

they dated for a couple months and i just sorta grinned and bore it cuz i had already lost him as a boyfriend, i didn't want to lose him as a friend - my best friend.

then one day, he called me and he said that he couldn't do this anymore.

i said; do what?


he said: "I can't date Ang anymore. i can't just be your friend anymore. i don't want to be your friend. it's too hard" (i'm paraphrasing of course)

i was heart broken. until he said: "i want more"

so.

thus begun our long distance love affair.

It's like a timeless love story!

sometimes i forget how amazing it is that we're actually together.

so, for those two years we wrote emails, we wrote letters, love letters, phone calls, phone sex, ;) visits at least once a month.... i would take two weeks off work and just go and stay with him

his roommates loved me - they told him that if he wanted i could move in with them - they're so cool.

anyway, one day around christmastime, i went out to visit him and at the end of my stay i didn't want to leave.

and he didn't want me to leave.

i realized that living without him was suddenly scarier and HARDER than picking up my life and moving. so i said "i can't do this anymore, i need to be here." so he looked for a place for us to live and i packed up all my worldly belongins into my dad's truck and moved there in June.

He proposed that December - and we were married nine months later in September.

three years ago today. aw

and that's the story

thanks for letting me tell you about it.

but like i said - not easy.

but worth it.

had we gotten married way back in the day i don't know if we'd have made it. we needed to learn communication, we needed to learn how to fight fair.

we needed to need each other.

our wedding rings are engraved with one word. "hopeless"

why?

because we're hopeless with out each other, and hopeless for each other.

it was out of our hands, out of our control.

Sometimes the Universe knows what it's doing, but it'll do it in its own sweet time.