In the beginning....

I moved to Mexico, NY my 7th grade year....1985.
So long ago it seems, but that was the year that I met the man that would become my future husband.
He played tuba.
I played the percussion section.
He was just a skinny little thing, and the tuba was bigger than he was!
My first day, they thought I was a student teacher....
There was such a big difference.
I was the girl that other girls hated.
Don't know why, didn't care.
He was the one that people tried to push out the window on the school bus.
He was goofy, and laughable, and loveable all at once.
And the day that I met him, I knew that he would be my friend forever..
But I had no idea what the future would bring for us....who EVER knows that?
My 8th grade year, he moved up to the high school ( he was a year ahead of me) and we lost touch for a while...
But the following year, we were back together again, and I always thought of him as my best friend.
He would pick me up in his dad's old pick up truck...and I was ALWAYS terrified because on the passengers side, there was a giant hole in the floor, and I could watch the road fly by me....
I remember ONE time, he picked my sister up to go to the movies, and I was insanely jealous! This was MY friend, not hers...back off!!
His junior year, he asked me to be his date at prom....right after he literally killed the entire bus with one of his amazing farts....windows down, people bellyaching over the stench, and he turns to me and said..."so, you're going to prom with me right?"
Now, how could a girl refuse that?
We had the best time.
I was so excited, he was so nervous.
We rode there in his Uncle's amazing classic car...can't remember what it was because I am starting to get tired (finally!)
We danced the night away...and the theme was Wonderful Tonight...

Everytime I hear that song now, it takes me back to that 16 year old girl...

The following year, it was MY prom time, and who else would I want to go with other than Dennis?
I asked, he said yes.
He showed up there, at my house, still nervous about my dad....
I drove my camero this time...and on the way there, just as we turned on the road to go to our high school, he reaches over and takes my hand...
I said, " what are you doing?"
He replies..."holding your hand."
Simple enough....
He graduated that year, and went off and joined the Navy.
He wrote me.
He came home from boot camp, and he wasn't this dorky little kid anymore...he had suddenly turned into a man somehow, and I will never forget the day that he walked into that bandroom while I was putting away my saxaphone...
Trench coat, military uniform....same goofy grin, and those amazing BC glasses...for those of you who don't know what that is...they are BIRTH CONTROL glasses...the UGLIEST things EVER!!!
My heart was pounding, my head was spinning, he had gained weight, and he just looked so GOOD to me...
That night was our annual band dance...he came to say goodbye. He was shipping out to Japan for four years.
My heart was broken...because I finally realized after all those years that there was something much much deeper to our relationship.
But, how do you say that....
I didn't, and he hugged me goodbye, and I went and sobbed on the bleachers in that old high school gym like a BIG. GIANT. BABY.
He left for Japan, and four years of 5 in the morning phone calls, and many letters (with my name spelled wrong ...pamala instead of pamela)....
I went off to college...FREEDOM was NOT my friend...
I had left behind that high school crush (which is what I was SURE it was) and I had my fun....and in the end, I didn't just bring home a GPA of 3.2, but also a beautiful, healthy 8 lb. 7 oz baby girl.
Dennis came home when she was only 4 months old...
The following conversation that ensued went something like this...
"so, I heard you had a baby..."
LOL
Yes, I had. He didn't know what to say, or how to say it, but he picked up the phone to call me...
And one of the very first pictures I have of the three of us together was in his parents house later on two nights later...
As I was sitting on that old couch, I looked across the living room at him, and the lights were low, and he wasn't wearing those BC glasses anymore, and his hair was longer on top, and he was tan, and he had this big, shit eating grin on his face, like he always does....and my heart flipped.
A thousand times...it flipped...and my breath caught.
THIS was not what I expected!
Almost two years had passed since that night in the high school gym...surely this wasn't real...
But, it was.

He left to go back to Japan, and while he was there, more letters came....and one day, as I was floating in the pool, my mom brought me back a purple envelope...addressed to Pamala Griswold...LOL
Still spelling the name wrong..
I said to my mom...I am gonna marry this man...she said, ya think...and I replied, nope, I know.