Picture to Burn

My sister Brittany calls me everyday, it's something i can count on without a doubt. some days i am way to busy to talk, or she can only talk for like 2 minutes... but the conversation happens. i get all the family gossip, the gossip from her work.. and she hears some of my most random stories that no one else does, since Rye is gone. We didn't get along growing up... we were at each others THROATS. She once chased me around the house with a steak knife and told me she was going to kill me... ya, mom and dad didn't believe me when they got home.. she also turned the dryer on once when i was hiding in there for a high stakes game of hide and go seek. Pretty much almost died in order to win that game.

But when i REALLY needed her, she was always there...usually :) this may surprise you (HA) but i got dumped ALOT in high school. Shocked aren't you... HAHA. and more than once it was because i had "rules" and when i wouldn't bend on my moral standards, i had no value anymore... ya i could sure pick em :) There was this Boy that i met when i was 10, and had the BIGGEST crush on him... but so did about a billion other girls. and then i moved when i was 12, and i assumed that i would never again hear from this boy. For reasons i've never understood, he really liked me, and kept in touch with me. We e-mailed, talked on long distance phonecalls for HOURS(this was back in 2000 so before we all had cell phones) and we chatted on AIM. We kept up our normal lives, and we both had boyfriends/girlfriends, but it was understood that one day when we got old, we were going to get married and be together forever. i visited my hometown alot since my dad still lived close. so i saw him quite a bit, and we fell more and more in love. At the age of 14 everyone of my friends KNEW about "boy" and knew that we were completely in love, and we were one of those classic couples that would go down in history. my 8th grade year was normal, i was BOY CRAZY, with ALOT of boys in school, i still talked to "boy" he had lots of girlfriends too.. we were best friends during the year, and then resumed our romance during my summer visits. summer of 2002, we spent ALOT of time together and i was more and more convinced that we were perfect for eachother, never mind that he was hardcore punk, and i was "preppy" that i listened to backstreet boys and nsync, while he preferred screamed lyrics that made your ears bleed. or that he had no problems with weed and that sort of stuff, and i had been taught from a young age to SAY NO!... none of that mattered... cause i was 14 and knew EVERYTHING about love and life.

Then freshman year started, and with that i decided to start writing "our story" i spent HOURS writing down every detail from every moment we'd spent together, and most conversations down to a T. I even had my exact outfits recorded. i had two complete notebooks FILLED. I was SO proud of these, as i was planning on one day showing our children (now that i look back... it's kind of creepy sounding). Sometime during this year, the calls from "boy" started slowing down, when we did talk, he'd put alot of interest into the boys i was seeing, and i was Delusional enough to think that he was jealous, and was worried i was slipping away... not the case. the closer we got to my summer visit, the odder things got... we had an unspoken agreement that when the summers came, we belonged to each other.. not other people from school, we didn't date close to summer. my trip got closer and closer and he kept talking about "her". To make a long story short, i showed up and spent 2 weeks with my best childhood friend, having a BLAST, except for when "boy" was mentioned.. we didn't really speak after the first time we ran into each other and all he said was "HEY, I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN FOREVER" and gave me an awkward hug... then introduced me to "her"... we didn't talk the rest of my trip until the night before i left, he asked if i could stop by his house the next morning, cause he had a present for me. And the way he spoke to me brought back every flood of memories, he hadn't talked to me like that in a LOONG time. i got up extra early and made sure i looked perfect. said goodbye to my best friend, and hopped in my sisters car. I had to ask if she would stop by "boy"'s house real quick, and it started a screaming match between us cause we had a 4 hour drive ahead of us. but she gave in, and said she would wait in the car and if i was longer than 10 minutes, she would leave me... (which didn't sound so bad if "boy" was still in love with me).. I knocked, his dad said he was back in his room, and i could head on back there. I opened his door, and immediately regretted it.. i had walked in on a PG-13 scene involving the boy i thought was going to be mine. i turned around to leave and he followed me out and acted like nothing happened... handed me a cd he made me, gave me a quick hug and said "see ya next summer". i walked down the stairs from his apt trying to keep it together, got in the jeep, apologized to my sister for the un-needed stop and told her to drive... FAST.

She wouldn't move the car until i explained what happened... but the way the day had gone i was expecting her to give me a big fat "well no duh he doesn't love you!!! look at you!!!" but she didn't, she listened to the entire story, and then pulled into the town's dairy queen and introduced me to my now favorite treat "arctic slush float" she put on her favorite break up cd (i think it was a cassette tape) of Alanis Morsette, and just let me cry for most of the 4 hour road trip.

I went back to Utah, and didn't want to tell anyone what had happened. i had been given the biggest form of rejection i could possibly imagine. I told them BITS of the story, but all they needed to know was that "boy" was gone, and i didn't want him to be brought up again. occasionally i would sit in Lauren's room and cry about how i would NEVER find anyone as perfect as him, and i was never going to be happy again... boy was i WRONG! i met Riley on a blind date that fall... that's where OUR story began, we didn't really start dating until the next summer and the more we dated, the more i realized that "boy" was a TERRIBLE match for me, he didn't really like anything about what made me, ME! i was constantly the butt of his jokes... where as with Riley we were ALWAYS laughing, but not AT each other, it was always WITH each other... something that was refreshing and amazing. i've never had to question if i was going to be with him forever, I met the love of my life when i was 15. and fell in love with him during my first summer romance with someone other than "stupid boy" if you read my blog, you know OUR story, so i won't write it all again. i'll link it HERE.

The point of this whole story is this. My sister is AMAZING, she's always there for me when i really need her, and i'm constantly trying to do the same for her. We may have hated each others guts, but i'm really grateful that she's my older sister. i know without a doubt that God knew what he was doing when he stuck the two of us together.


I had a really good friend Lincoln (who is now married to my amazing friend Tiffany, who i also grew up with). After the situation with "boy" he was one of the few people that knew everything, and so one night when i was moping around and whining to him, he walked down to my house from his up the hill. and convinced me to BURN every picture of "boy" and Me, as well as my notebooks.. took some convincing, but i grabbed my box full of CRAP, and headed to my back porch. It was one of the sweetest things a friend has ever done for me, he let me tell the story behind the pictures, and then he'd take the lighter and BAM it was gone! he convinced me that he wasn't worth being upset about.. secretly i think Lincoln was just a bit of a pyromaniac.

I've only seen "boy" once since the "incident"... i was briefly dating his best friend (he was a LOOONG time family friend, so it was less creepy!) anyway, it was awkward, and horrible, and i HATED every moment, needless to say i didn't date his friend for long... i went back to Utah for the very last time ever. and 3 weeks later i started going "steady" with Riley... and i've never once regretted it, or thought twice about the decision.

there are a billion experiences that have made me who i am today, into the wife of a Marine, the wife of a Grunt, The wife of my better half and soul mate. there are a billion things that have shaped him, and who he has become... Riley didn't have to learn lessons by dating and getting dumped.. i was his first and ONLY girlfriend... (other than a quick middle school romance). But being his only, i was ashamed of my past, and of the guys i had dated, and the fact that i HAD dated before him. i know it sounds like a stupid thing to be ashamed of, but i was. And he didn't really help this, because i think he hated the fact that i had ever dated before him more than i did. This past year though, i have decided to EMBRACE my past, because without it, and without all the mistakes i made, i probably wouldn't have been Ready to jump head first in with Rye.

I refuse to regret my past. Because i don't ever want to look back on 'Now' and regret it later. there is no point. I have the most AMAZING Husband, and in-law's. I love my older sister to death, and look forward to our daily chit-chat. I adore my 3 younger siblings, and can't believe how brilliant they all are. I have 2 parents who love me sooo much, and just want me to be happy. and i have the most wonderful stepmom who texts me at LEAST once a week. bottom line, i am one blessed girl. I'm glad it's February, but i don't regret January or December or any other month i've had to spend without my other half. because like "boy" they have shaped me into the woman i am becoming, and i'm pretty proud of the result.

I Love You so much Cute Bum, Stay Safe and come home to me... but above all else.

Look Unto Christ in Every Thought, Doubt Not Fear Not.