“It was a beautiful summer evening and my girlfriend Hillary and I were having dinner on the patio at our favorite local pizzeria. It was a perfect night. The kind that made me feel, whole again. After 3 long years of widowhood (and sudden single-parenthood), I was starting to feel somewhat human. Gone were the days loss felt so heavy I could barely breathe. In its place, for the first time in years, I had allowed myself to hope for what my future could be. Sounds silly to some, but when your life implodes all around you after losing a spouse to cancer, it takes a very long time before you begin to see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I was enjoying this moment in time, because it had been so incredibly long since I felt hopeful.
My girlfriend went to the restroom while I picked up my phone. It had pinged awhile back, so I wanted to make sure it wasn’t anything serious. Turns out it was just an Instagram notice of a ‘follow.’ I looked to see who it was. My heart stopped. Time stood still. And from this moment forward, everything changed.
You see, it wasn’t just anybody who followed me that beautiful summer evening. It was my high school sweetheart. My first love. The ONE guy who took up residence in my heart and somehow never left.
I met DeAngelo when I was 14 years old. He was 15 and one grade above me, a sophomore. He was the new kid in our small, private school. A transfer, and a much hyped one, considering all his athletic capabilities. The school was a buzz at his arrival, but I felt unaffected. He was a grade above me so I doubted our paths would cross. Except they did. The first day of school. He told me later he saw me and knew in an instant he’d met his future wife. He came up, said hello on the first day of school, and that was that.
We were two little peas in a pod from then on. Nothing could keep us apart. Always just wanting to be together, much to the dismay of every other girl in the school. But for us, it wasn’t just a casual relationship. We had deep feelings from the instant we first met. What was even cooler, we became true best friends. If we hadn’t dated, we still would’ve been this for each other. He was the first person who truly understood me. During our breaks, we would run to each other’s lockers, even for just a quick hello. At lunch we would sit and talk to each other about life. We bonded over many things. I told him I believed he was destined for greater things than just what he could do with a ball. He told me I was one of the first people to see and believe that of him. He believed the same of me. Together, we were a force.
Our love was deep and lasted the entire time we were in school together and beyond. But after his graduation, I got a little antsy. A big part of me wanted to experience my senior year being something other than ‘DeAngelo’s girlfriend.’ I wanted change and more life experiences. I wanted to leave town and go to college, while he wanted to stay home. But most of all, I wanted him to experience even more life and freedom. If he was going to be with me, I wanted him to choose me above everything else out there, not just because it was the natural high school relationship progression. I always thought if we were meant to be we would come back to each other. In my mind, I somehow just knew it would happen this way.
