Feelin' the love...

16 years later and we are still in luuuuuvvvv, lust and all that other good stuff that gives me the warm tingly feelings deep in my belly (and, ah hem, other regions).

That first picture was one of our first dates. Yes, that would be Van Halen and yes, Sammy Hagar was hanging on my 21 year old cuteness and poor FG was pushed aside. That picture was taken on May 9, 1992 - a couple of weeks after we officially started dating. The recent picture was taken last month. But because I'm feeling so sentimental, let me share my little story from the beginning....

I was a broadcasting student and had to do an internship at a radio station for class. My friend and I always partnered up and as we sat looking through the sheet of business cards of local station contacts I will never forget when she said, "Let's go to this station. That's Jessica's uncle." I said, "Um, ok, cool, my boyfriend listens to that station maybe I can get him a shirt or a sticker or something."

The day we show up for our internship we were directed to "Jessica's Uncle's" office (of course that's not how they referred to him). He directs us to the morning DJ (the blond girl in the Van Halen pic actually). My friend and I are shown around the studio, various rooms with equipment that looked similar to what we worked with at school but on a much grander scale. As we are standing in the production studio where "stuff" is recorded to go on the air but not the studio where the DJ's speak on the air, I see a light-brown/blond head clad in a baseball hat go bobbing past the window. I do not remember anything else that was shown to me for the next 15 minutes. I got this very strange feeling in my stomach, I felt something was going to happen between that guy and me.

After our tour, my partner and I got split up - she went off with a salesperson named Todd and I got to stay in the studio and see how the whole thing worked with getting actual sound over the air. Who did I get to work with? Yep, that same bobbing head under a baseball hat that gave me an odd feeling. He was not supposed to be there that day. He was covering for the normal afternoon guy (who happened to be SMA). I had a boyfriend of 5 years so WHY was I feeling like a nervous schoolgirl around this dude? Why was I so happy that the normal afternoon guy SMA wasn't there and this guy got to fill in?

Fast forward a bit. I left that day feeling really giddy and silly. I just knew something was going to happen between this guy and myself. I knew what parts of me were hoping would happen and I actually had the thought that I would either 1) have an affair with this guy or 2) he and I would become really good friends.

I didn't go back for a few weeks because it was spring break for college. But that didn't get my thoughts off Radio Guy. And oddly enough I ran into him during that time too. I was at Taco Bell with my mom & aunt who was in town visiting. We were on our way back from San Francisco and stopped on that side of town for something quick to eat. Standing in line he showed up in line behind me with a friend (oddly enough, not SMA this time but a guy who eventually would be his roommate). I got all those wonderful flutters again. THIS was fate and it was just sealing up my predictions of what was going to happen with him.

I went back a week or so later for my next internship session. I walk in and sadly saw SMA sitting in the studio. I was crushed. Radio Guy wasn't normally there in the afternoons. But, since he didn't have too much of a life, he DID show up. Yay! At that time, we chatted more and I learned he was 19. My 21 year old college sorority girl brain screamed, "OMG, he's a BABY!!! He can't even go to the bar with me! What the hell am I thinking. Oh yeah, I want to jump him and take him right here and now! Damn. "

Now, mind you, I did still have that pesky boyfriend of mine. He was a real peach too, abusive in so many ways mentally and sometimes physically. I was really terrified to break it off with him. I had tried in the 5 years we had been together and always ended right back there with him.

But I found ways to talk to and see Radio Guy. We became friends and talked on the phone a lot. I went to meet him at a bar once (fake ID, don't tell the kids!) and went back to the radio station even after my short term internship was done. I was simply smitten! Ok, I'll admit, it was way more than that. I WANTED him. Yet I still didn't see myself leaving my boyfriend. I saw myself having wild, passionate, great sex with this guy and that was that. BTW, he turned 20 during that time. When I met him it was only a few weeks away from his birthday.

Finally around 2 or 3 am one evening after talking on the phone for hours and being very thankful my sorority house room mate was staying at her boyfriend's, he asked me to go out. *Insert college sorority girl squeal*

I was so excited! I spent a lot of time getting ready and primping. I said goodbye to my sorority sisters as they went out to a party and I waited for him to pick me up. ONE girl was still at the house when he did. It also happened to be the ONE damn girl who had kissed my boyfriend behind my back. grrrr. Yeah, so I hadn't exactly broken up with him yet, still. So the dumb bitch TOLD HIM what I was doing when he called looking for me that night. I hate her to this day for making my life hard, oh yeah, and for kissing my boyfriend behind my back because really, that's just not cool.

We had a perfect first date. Thank God SMA wasn't included. He held doors for me, he bought me dinner and a movie. He kissed me goodnight, sweetly, on the doorstep of the sorority house when he dropped me off and walked me to the door. It was heaven! Then I got the nasty messages on my answering machine from my boyfriend.

The Boyfriend came to the house the next day and I felt no sorror or fear when I told him it was definitely over and it had been over for awhile and he was insane if he thought it wasn't. He stalked us for awhile and then, mercifully, faded out of my life. But he would show up at places that Radio Guy, now nicknamed FG, and I would go. Because of the radio station we went to LOTS Of shows and concerts and since that was what The Boyfriend listened to he knew all about it. Oh, I never did get him a sticker or a t-shirt.

One night The (ex) Boyfriend grabbed me out of a crowd as I was walking behind FG but not holding onto him. He took me outside and tried to get me to tell him I still loved him blah blah blah. Thankfully, SMA was there and got FG to rescue me.

FG and I finally had sex. Whew! Gosh it felt like that took forever. I will never forget it. Oh yeah, here I am admitting that I had premarital sex. Whoops!

We got married a couple of years later, had kids 6 years after that. I'll save the engagement story for another day and the stories of how integrated SMA is in our lives. As you read, if he hadn't needed the day off I may have never seen FG's head go bobbing past the window and fallen instantly in love. I say bobbing because he walks with a bit of a bounce. It was worse back then. But it's just like his father - Jessica's uncle.