Cliff Notes...

I finally had to break down and clean out the guest room closet today. I was having a hard time keeping the door to it closed and I was pretty sure I had lost/casually tossed aside a magazine I wanted to look at. It's also my Spring Break and I have no excuse for not being at least moderately productive.

Just after I stepped on a piece of glass (apparently I broke something before and left it...smart move), found a pack of completely unopened gum in an old purse (still chewable) and tried to lay down in the closet to measure how big it was (not big enough for me to lay down in, long ways or sideways), I found a cigar box that I recognized. See below, box on the right.



The contents of this box include numerous notes Tie and I exchanged during high school. We started dating October of 1999 (big sigh). It was my senior year and his junior year. Actually, all the notes in this box are ones that he wrote to me. I read a lot of them. I was laughing so hard that Scout actually pushed open the door to the closet to see what I thought was so funny. Man, I wish he could read!

Seriously, the notes are about the cheesiest thing you've ever seen in your life. Everyone of them. I love you blah blah blah. You're so great, blah blah blah. I'm your snuggle bug, blah blah blah. Tie was 17 when he wrote this stuff. How did he know I was great? He didn't, in fact (yet).

The box on the left above contains notes I wrote to him. After he got home, I asked him to get some stuff out of the hall closet for GoodWill. But first I had him read a couple of the notes I found. He was mortified. He said they were so douchey (I hesitate to type such crass language but, he was pretty insistent that this was the best way to describe his juvenile professions of love). Anyway, I was giving him grief and he disappeared upstairs for while and returned with the box above. These were notes that I wrote to him. There were 58. I counted. It's a wonder that I managed to graduate because most of the notes I wrote him were 2 pages long. My words were just as sappy and cheesy as his were to me, but I repeated them 2-3 times during one note. I should have tried to sell them to some country music wanna be hanging around downtown. Ick.

I don't know why Tie and I say ick/blah/douchey/sappy now when we revisit our notes. I think it's because we think about how little we knew, understood and even felt really then compared to now. We had no clue what we were doing or what we were talking about. We didn't love each other really. We were infatuated, sure. But not love. But, as I said to Tie, I wouldn't trade those notes (him to me or vice versa) for anything. Even though our feelings then were quite shallow compared to how they've grown, they were a start. We probably wouldn't love each other as deeply now if we hadn't gone through such a state of twitterpatedness (Bambi, remember?) Tie and I are much better at the making each other laugh, challenging each other, solving problems together, planning adventures together and just the living part of love. Good thing we got all that yucky stuff out of our systems!