our love story: part one...

"it's a love story baby just say yes..."

yup.

I just quoted Taylor Swift.

After over two years of having this blog and sharing the "cliff notes" version of my relationship with DJ, how it came to be, and our "story." I think it's time to give you the whole thirteen year saga from our "meet cute" to our elopement and everything in between!  I know that 95% of the people reading this don't really know how our relationship came to be - including those that know me pretty well. To say that our marriage was a shock to most people, if not all the people in our lives, is an understatement.

So here's how it came to be... what makes this even better? DJ has agreed to give his version of our story as well - that's right, you get the he said along with the she said. We'll be writing our stories separately so sometimes you might get the same story twice. BUT, for the record - when our stories don't match up, MINE is always the accurate one!

Anyways, to quote the lovely Maria [Julie Andrews] from Sound of Music... let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start... [yes, I went there]

the very beginning, aka 1996-1999

he said:

High School (9^th -11^th grade)

Before we take this 96’ Honda Civic down memory lane and reminisce of Annahita’s early years with the geeky, chubby high school version of myself, I must preface this chapter with three very important facts that will help get this narrative on its way:

1. Annahita is my soul mate and my best friend.  On the romance scale of 0 to 10, we are a 9, with the Notebook being a 7.  Today, our love for each other is magnificent, however, it wasn’t always like this.  In fact, in high school, I think we would have made Steve Carell and Ricky Lake look romantic.  The truth is I was a dork and Annahita had a funny name. 
2. The brevity of this chapter is by no means an indication of the lack of early experiences between Hita and I.  It is more of the fact that I simply can’t remember much after I started eating Ramen Noodles (see the college chapter).
3. Hita and I went to special high school for special people.  Not short buses, just short on social skills.   

Freshman Year

Confused. Pretty much sums up my freshman year.  The conversion from middle school boy to high school, um, man introduced polarizing forces that threw me and my bowl cut in to a tizzy.  I was Gangster’s Paradise on the outside yet Macarena-ing on the inside.  I was awkward, but gaining confidence. And my mind was telling me no, but my body, my body was telling me yes.  Unfortunately, in all of this confusion, I can’t recall the exact moment I met Annahita.  

We did, however, have Gym class together, but I think she was interested in boys with sketchier mustaches than mine.  Here is a picture from freshman year.

Freshman year on the bus. Have no clue where we are going. I am the awkward twit in the sexy, puffy blue Adidas jacket.  And where is Annahita?  She is in the back of the bus with the cool kids rolling dice and drinking booze out of a brown bag.

Sophomore Year

Annahita was finally on my radar. Although she was dating the ‘older’, cooler guys with their driving permits, I began to take note of how beautiful she really was.  We were spending a significant amount of time together after school for drama (yes, we were fabulous) and I started to see the beginnings of what I would later fall head over heals for – Annahita was wonderful and sincere. And her name wasn’t so weird anymore.  

Below is a picture that Annahita took of us as bad ass thespians.

Notice how much of a tool I am.  What am I doing with my hands? The Franken-robot? I suck. As you can see, I was photo bombing back when it wasn’t cool.

Junior Year

I don’t remember much of Junior year, except that this was the year that solidified my friendship with Annahita. In between 10^th and 11^th grade I lost 30 lbs. and all of sudden girls liked me.  Hita and I were both dating/seeing other people (side note – Hita was still dating older dudes) which made hanging out with each other comfortable and void of weird sexual tension.

Junior year laid an important foundation for Annahita and I.  We were real, we were friends, we were ourselves.  And this is something that hasn’t changed since.

she said:
It was 1996. I had frizzy hair, he was chubby... The rest, as they say was history.

DJ and I met our freshman year of high school. We both chose to forgo our "home" high schools and attend BA [Boyd Anderson] for the International Baccalaureate magnet program [aka, we're both major nerds].

[our freshman year of high school - I'm on the right in the grandpa sweater looking like I'm going to tip over -- DJ isn't in this picture... BUT his first girlfriend/kiss is - and it's not me, haha]

I know we had a plethora of classes together over the years. but honestly, only two stick out in my mind -- one our freshman year [PE] and one our senior year [TOK, but we'll get to that later]. so, we met in Coach Ingram's PE class and really became friends through Danny's best friend Donny [yup, same Donny who was the best man in our wedding]. We all bonded over being chastised by Coach Ingram and omitting the push-up exercise... Oh yeah, DJ taught our teacher what the word omit meant. special.

Our magnet program didn't really have cliques, so DJ and I ran in the same circles throughout the years. We were both in drama club together [yup, super cool] and were both involved in every play that our high school put on in some aspect [tech or acting]. So throughout the years, we became better friends, had more classes together and spent a fair amount of time together outside of school through drama and just hanging out.

[Little Shop of Horrors our sophomore year, DJ and I were both tech for this show, I'm on the right hand side with the awesome bangs]

So remember that chubby boy from PE class in the orange shirt and black shorts? Yeah, somewhere between sophomore and junior year he lost his baby fat and got kinda cute [okay, really cute]... But, I had two pretty serious [serious, hah - you know, "high school serious" aka not really that serious at all in retrospect] boyfriends throughout high school [one freshman and sophomore year, one junior and the beginning of senior year]. Well, neither of them were Danny J -- DJ and I were just friends through it all... he was off trying to date girls from "normal" high schools [aka, not nerdy girls like me].

At the end of our junior year my ex-boyfriend [you know, the one from freshman and sophomore year] convinced DJ to run against me for drama club president, so he did [he lost by the way]. That really has nothing to do with our relationship but I'm proud of the fact that I beat him out for it [I like to think it was by a landslide, hah].

So that was the first three years of high school, the foundation of a great friendship [which would one day turn into a great relationship]. At this point though, we had just been strictly platonic friends... Then, at the beginning of my senior year - my current boyfriend who was a year older headed off to college at MIT [clearly he was an idiot]. So, we did long distance for a bit and it just wasn't working for either of us so we decided to just be friends and I was ready to enjoy my senior year...

senior year aka part two.... 

coming soon [aka next week].