Back To The Start

I probably should have made this my first post, but we can fix that. Let's take it to 88, kids. We're going back in time.

Believe it or not, Josh actually used to own one of these

money pits. Photo via Classic and Performance Car

The first time I saw Josh, I was waiting for an interview for a job at a music store and he was working at the register. My first thought was that he was CUTE. My second thought was that his sideburns were huge.

I was nineteen and visiting my parents in Santa Fe during my winter break. It was my freshman year of college, and because the whole experience during the fall semester had been overwhelming, I had decided to make the trip to stay with my parents and take a hiatus from school during the spring semester. My Dad laid down the law. If I wasn't going to school, I was getting a job. I decided to apply at a music store because I was OBSESSED with music and I (mistakenly) thought that my days there would entail being paid to talk about music with other audiophiles. I had never really had a job before and I was ecstatic when I was called back.

Josh had already been working at the store for over a year. He was in his senior year of high school and working part time to make a little bit of extra money. He had a girlfriend and spent time with her when he wasn't working at the store or studying.

I started working at the store in January of 2002. Josh and I sometimes worked together, and when we did he always seemed extremely nervous and shy. I did everything I could to make his nervousness worse, including getting down on one knee in the DVD section of the store one night and proposing with a bubblegum machine ring. As he became more comfortable with me, we became friends. We started to socialize outside of work. We bonded over a mutual love of comic books, Star Wars and legos.

In April, Josh broke up with his girlfriend. He invited me to see him act in a play at his high school one night. I sat in the dark theater by myself and watched Josh transform himself from a shy, quiet person who turned beet-red at the drop of a hat to someone who was completely in his element. I'm pretty sure that I started to fall in love with him then. He asked me to be his girlfriend that night and after just a little bit of feigned resistance, we were dating. It grew to be something serious really quickly.

In September, as we were in the process of moving our things back to the town that I grew up in to start school again, I told Josh I loved him. I was happy to hear that he loved me too.

It was a great start, a wonderful relationship. We spent almost three years completely wrapped up in each other, fighting too much and crazy in love. I didn't see an end coming, but it did.

To Be Continued...