A Tale of Epic Romance: Part 2

For those of you who have logged on late, please make sure you read part one of this fabulous love story. I would also like to add, that this is based on my memory, the years are accurate but over time my I may have forgotten some of the specific details. However, to the best of my recollection this is both true and accurate.

Fast forward to 1994, I had finally gotten the urge to take the leap. Emily and I began dating. Much to her parents chagrin, we began to date regularly, but instead of notes and phone calls it was movies and late nights. The summer of 1994 I left for New Mexico for a couple of months. Emily wrote me letters and sent me stale cookies in a shoe box (in her defense they probably were not stale when they were put in the box and sent). I think I wrote to her once. Emily had even joined Cross Country that year so we could be together, unbeknownst to her I did not intend to do Cross Country anymore. I kind of felt bad about that because running sucks and she did it for me.

Things were going great but for some reason things began to fade. I still liked Emily but the though of being with the same person forever is somewhat overwhelming to a young man who was barely maintaining a 2.0 GPA and just wanted to ride a bike and fish. Then came a fateful day, Emily called me on the phone after we had some issues and she said “do you want to make this work or not.” Being an 18 year old male I was scared and still somewhat hurt from the first time she dumped me. So I said “No.” I was devastated. I do not blame Emily for the anger and hostility she had towards me (even if her anger was unjustly aimed at me) but I was confused.

The truth was my eye was on another girl who was working very hard at romancing me. Again, it is somewhat true that I had been avoiding Emily and figured she was going to end it eventually, but in the end, she twisted it and put it on me. I was the bad guy. What hurt the most was that her anger was unjustified because this was the way she had treated me before. You would have thought that she would have been more understanding having pulled this on me.

I was planning a trip to go visit a friend in Denmark, although my memory has faded it might have been the girl that Emily broke up with me over because of her ravenous jealousy. I didn't know how Emily knew that I was going to Denmark, but she called the day before I left to tell me to have a good trip. Little did I know but Emily was scheming. I think it is in the bible somewhere saying that there is nothing more bad then a scheming woman. I think.

A couple of months later I returned from Denmark. I was a 19 year old man with no ambition and bagging groceries/frying donuts at Safeway. I was clearly on a path to shift manager. I was hanging out with a friend Dan who was rising through the ranks of life about as fast as I was. We hung out in his basement and mountain biked, a lot. One day after a trip to Hastings to spend my hard earned donut money on a CD, Dan and I pulled up to his house there was a tall beautiful woman knocking on his door. It was Emily. She heard I was back in town and was scheming; never mess with a scheming woman. It says it in the bible.

We watched a movie in Dan’s basement. After it was over I drove her home and we sat there late into the night talking. I do not remember what we talked about, but I do remember how beautiful she was. I was about to leave, after all she was still in high school and I had to get up early to bag groceries when Emily leaned over and asked if we were back together. I said yes and she kissed me. It was not a small peck but a long passionate kiss. I thought it was a bit forward and borderline inappropriate but I went with it anyway. After all I hadn’t seen her in almost a year.

I was smitten; I was in a state of deep smit. Each day as I bagged groceries I could not wait until Emily got done with school so we could be together (much to her parents chagrin). Being with her was special I loved every moment of it. It was feeling I had never had. You know the one I am talking about. Your hands sweat, your heart beats uncontrollably (not that you really have a say in how it normally beats, but you know what I mean). Just the thought of being around her makes time slow down until you are with her and then it seems to speed up so your time together is so short it seems like seconds. We spent all of our free time together and then it happened. One day, Emily and I were sitting on the stairs going to Dan’s basement, I couldn’t take it anymore. I leaned over and told Emily I loved her. She was somewhat taken aback. But I think she liked me.

Then she went to college in Billings, I missed her every day she was gone and she rarely came home because of the distance. I had been promoted to donut fryer at Safeway. Every morning while frosting the maple bars, I was afraid that she would be romanced away. But we made it work.

The next year, she transferred to the University of Montana and we saw each other on the weekends for a couple of years. I looked forward to seeing her every weekend. The drives to Missoula seemed to take forever, and the weekends flew by. When she drove to Helena, she could not arrive soon enough. During that time I had moved up in the world and was now working at Morning Light Coffee and fishing every day. One day I was kind of bored, so on my home I stopped and bought a wedding ring. I couldn’t wait for her to come home so I could give it to her. It was nothing fancy, after all our relationship was built on love (and I didn’t make much money serving lattes). Much to her parents chagrin she said yes. We got married on 22 August, 1998 and I have not had a single regret.

Every relationship has a one that reaches and one that settles. I am clearly the reacher and appreciate Emily for settling on me.


Happy 12th Anniversary Emily

A Tale of Epic Romance: Part 1

Today I would like to tell a story about a woman who changed my life. Her name is Emily, but not the Emily I married. One day when I was in the 7th Grade, Emily approached me and said that there was a 6th grade girl that she rode the bus with and she thought that I would like her. So the next day she introduced me to a girl named Emily. Based on a two minute discussion with Emily, I decided I liked her (probably based on hormones, how much can you learn about a 6th grade girl in two minutes), so I asked her to be my girlfriend and of course she said yes. As I look back to 1989/90 about all a 13 year old could do was exchange notes and talk for endless hours on the phone. She even came to my 14th birthday party. So that is what we did……until one fateful day, Emily broke my heart.

She called me on the phone; after all, that is what we did. She told me that she had met another guy and wanted to be his girlfriend, however, if he declined she still wanted to be my girlfriend. I was devastated. As I held back my tears and tried to quell the pain in my chest, I told her that she had already made her choice and that I would not be a contingency plan. And that was it.
The year was 1992, it was the first day of my sophomore year at Helena High. I was walking down the hall to class when I saw a beautiful girl. She was smartly dressed and her blue eyes glistened in the fluorescent lights of the hallway as she looked at her class schedule. The look on her face clearly indicated that she was stressed. I approached the beautiful freshman and putting away the hurt which had scarred me for years I asked “Hi Emily, do you need some help.” Emily stated “yes, I do not know where this room is.” So I walked her to the classroom and bid adieu. For several years I desperately wanted to ask her out, however, I could not get past the pain of the last time. Trust is a difficult thing to repair once it has been broken.

True Hardship

The past few weeks have been interesting. It started off with a housemate plugging my XBOX 360 directly into the wall, frying the power pack. Then a plane with 152 people crashed into a mountain less than a mile from my house. Then the flooding started that displaced ½ a million people with thousands missing and dead. What next, locusts? No, the worst possible scenario…..my laptop died. After spending an hour on the phone with a guy from India (should have been a local call), he determined that the motherboard was shot and it would cost $400 to repair. A new one is cheaper than that. But I will have it fixed.

I know that the floods and plane crash pale in comparison to the suffering I have to endure by going one month or more without a computer at home (not my real home, my Pakistan home which I liket to refer to as my "Time Share"). Please don’t worry too much, I will overcome. I hope that in the end it makes me a stronger more resilient person.

In the mean time I will be limited to my iPod and 40” flat screen for entertainment. The only thing else that could go wrong is that my blackberry goes down. I know that many of you cannot even to begin to understand the hardships I am currently enduring and you may be spending a large amount of time wondering what you can do to alleviate some of the discomfort. However, I fear that there is nothing anyone can do to help me through this phase. Well, maybe Hot Tamales and Mike and Ikes.

Brent