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| Celebrating my 19th birthday with Mickey and Minnie |
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| My younger sister and me in Florida when they came to visit |
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| Cheesecake Factory, again celebrating my birthday |
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| Fun day on "sunny" Florida's beaches |
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| Day at the water park! |
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| Our wedding day |
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| The most beautiful day of my life |
Andrew was a year older than me in school. He moved to my little corner of the world when he was 9 years old and I was just starting second grade. Although there were two elementary schools in our town at that time, he and his sisters were enrolled in the one I was attending. His sister Susan is a year younger than me. I remember Susan because she played the harp and came to play for my music class one day. In middle school, I became friends with one of Andrew's good friends. I knew who he was, but had never spoken a word to Andrew until high school newspaper class.
I fell for him during my junior year. We had worked together in newspaper for almost two years and the more I got to know him, the more I cared about him. In the spring, we attended a newspaper convention in San Francisco (yes, we are complete nerds). Those few days were some of the most exciting days of my life; we talked here and there as we wound through the sunny streets and I had this overwhelming feeling that we were perfect for each other, it was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. But the trip was over all too quickly, and the timing was terrible because we were both dating other people. It was wrong of us not to be honest with those people and tell them we had feelings for someone else, but I didn't know how he felt about me, and he didn't know I was falling for him either. We were both too chicken to tell each other. At his graduation I cried in the stands, feeling hopeless that I missed my chance to be with him.
Andrew went to BYU in the fall. Just before he came home for winter break he sent me a message over myspace (I know, still nerdy) all it said was "I love you." When I read it, my heart felt like it was going to explode. I was cautious because I thought it was someone playing a cruel trick on me. But then we started talking and it really was him. He asked me out on our first date over winter break. We had a couple more dates and I couldn't believe how easy it was being around him. I wish I could say that from here we had a happily ever after, but like most people, our story is much more complicated. Again, it was over all too quickly, and he left to work at Disney World on the College Program as a water park life guard.
We talked almost every day those first few weeks we were apart, that was the highlight of my day. Then tragedy hit in February when my older sister committed suicide. I was devastated and felt guilty for being so self absorbed in my new romance. Andrew sent flowers when he found out. I was comforted by the fact that he was there for me. We continued to talk, but slowly our conversations became less frequent. Just before his college program was to end in May, Andrew went to an emergent care facility for a foot injury sustained at work. He had been struggling with insomnia ever since high school, but nobody really knew about it. It had been really bad during the last few weeks. During routine questioning, he triggered some of their red flag questions. He was put on a 72 hour hold and handcuffed to be taken to a mental institution. Florida has some really stupid laws, and this is one of them. I may be biased, but they also have some of the worst doctors in the nation because their medical requirements are lower than most states. They locked him away for two weeks and pumped him full of every deadly concoction of drugs imaginable. They said he had bipolar disorder, but they couldn't have been more wrong.
Finally his dad had to fly down to rescue him. Andrew was coming home. I didn't know really what had been going on, or that he was back. I was shocked when he called and invited me over with a bunch of other friends to watch the season finale of The Office. I saw him and he was like my ray of sunshine, I couldn't help but smile at him the whole night. Over the next few weeks, I slowly got the picture of what had happened. He was still on a ridiculous amount of medication because the doctors at home didn't bother to run any of their own tests and relied on what the doctors in Florida did. Andrew was home, but he wasn't himself.
I graduated from high school and we dated all that summer, but it wasn't easy. I was still dealing with the death of my sister, and he was on so many medications he didn't know what was real or what he was hallucinating. The funny thing about antipsychotics is that if you don't need them, they give you the symptoms they were designed to treat. I went to college in the fall, and we spoke over the phone every night. We fought a lot, but I knew I couldn't give up on him. In the spring, he enrolled in the school I was going to so we could be together. He was slowly trying to get off the medications because deep down, he knew he didn't need them. But they had already taken a toll on his body. He often fainted or had seizures. Very slowly, he started to be himself again.
Andrew is LDS and I was curious about it because I could see it meant so much to him. He introduced me to mormon.org and after we went home for the summer, I started taking the missionary discussions. My parents were not fond of the idea and it was the cause of a lot of tension in our house. But I knew I had found something very special and it gave my life a whole new meaning. That fall, we went to Florida on a college program. Andrew loves Disney. I was so excited to live in Florida, and we made so many good friends. In November I was baptized and my parents flew down to show their support.
We decided to stay in Florida after our college program and work at Disney World. In June of 2009 Andrew proposed and we were married in November. It was the best day of my life. I finally had my Andrew, my best friend, and the love of my life. We stayed in Florida until summer of 2010, and then we came out to BYU-Idaho to get our degrees. We love it here in Idaho and couldn't ask for a better school, friends, or family.
