I Blog for Tina.... The Story of Evan and Meagan. Viewer Discretion Advised.

Tina, in Prague, obviously does not know the story of Evan and Meagan. SO at her request, I will tell it, as shortly as I can, beginning with the beginning, 1995. I am also going to be brutally honest. So for those of you who have never heard everything that led me to Evan, I apologize, and don't think any of this is elaborated for the web, because in the past, I found it easier not to talk about some things that happened before Evan.

Evan's parents went to school with my mom. They were in the same class. They are the same age. Evan's dad's birthday is two day's after my mom's.

in 1995, four school districts in our area combined and consolidated to form Bureau Valley High School. I spent my first and only year there as a senior, with 90 new classmates (from 17 in my class at Manlius to 110 people in my class at Bureau Valley.) I went to a new building. We had new classes. I met Evan. He, like me, was in Art. He was also in my PE class. It was the only Co-ed PE class in the entire school, and we all had SO much fun with it. That's where I met many of my newest friends. We played Hockey and soccer and I had a blast.

Evan had a girlfriend (okay, a few- but they never lasted longer than a couple of months.) and I had a boyfriend. But I would eye Evan. But I LOVED my boyfriend so I pretty much dismissed it. Evan and I became friends. The following spring my boyfriend, who I LOVED in a first love kind of way, broke up with me. At the time I was just crushed. I mean we were going to get MARRIED, right? But I didn't have my eyes in reality, like the fact that we fought too much, and that he was a physical fighter, and I would fight right back, kicking and screaming. I had a mouth that would scare anyone away. One day he got me cornered, he swung at my face and I ducked. He hit the wall and I stood up and swung at him. I caught him in the face with a left hook and my ring cut his cheek open under his eye. After I hit him, I hightailed it out of his house like a Bat out of hell, because I thought that after I hit him, he would kill me.

At one point, my boyfriend at the time, and Evan, got into a fight at a home football game. There were other reasons for the fight besides me, but I am sure I had a little something to do with it. Ex probably didn't like that I even talked to Evan, let alone stuck up for him. I got in the middle and stopped it. There was no fight, not because my boyfriend listened to me, but because Evan listened to me. My boyfriend was a high school dropout, looking for his GED, and had what I put into perspective as a hard life and an unfair start- no dad, lived with his grandparents, his friends were a state away, saw his mom like 4 times a year and his brother once a year, the whole deal. He was generally a considerate and loving person. But he was also very protective, very jealous, and posessive. He also could get very angry, very fast, and was not afraid to take a swing at his own girlfriend. We had a relationship that involved a lot of fighting. I am a pretty strong willed person, and we were both very young, and that made things worse. We really weren't a good match... but we were so involved it was hard to see at the time. I try to have no hard feelings, and I wouldn't take any of it back for anything, because I learned alot and I got to experience what love can be like and I got to learn how to get over "love."

But I guess it took me a while to realize that I loved the person that he was trying to be, and that I thought he could be, and not the person he actually was. I was REALLY young. I was 15 or 16 at the time and I met him at church (strange) and we sang in the choir together. But that really was no reflection of what he was like. He used to have this thing about threatening to take me and have a group of gang members (or their girlfriends) beat me up with wrenches. I tried never to take him seriously, but if he got mad at me, he would drive me 45 minutes away to scare me and I remember thinking I would just jump out of the moving car and scream at a passerby to get away from him. And other times if he got mad at me, he would take me out in the country and make me get out of the car in the middle of the night. He would leave me there along the road, usually next to a stop sign, and drive away, and come back to get me like 10 minutes later. I guess that that 10 minutes was supposed to teach me a lesson about how much I was supposed to appreciate him. I don't know. A smarter me would have dropped him instantly. But at the time, you just don't realize. Sometimes I find myself wondering if he was ever that way with his next girlfriend, his current wife, and I feel badly for her. But I suppose that we just had this volatile relationship, I don't know. And just like I learned my lesson, he probably learned his- Anyway, enough about that, the past is behind us.

So anyway, of course I went through the lost your first love, heartbroken thing. My Ex and I had dated a year, which to a 16 year old was ETERNITY! Evan still had a girlfriend. Now at the time, my ex had promised that we would still go to prom together, as we had planned, and we were still "friends" for about 4 months or so after we broke up. I had every intention of asking Evan to prom. He was a sophomore and I was a senior. But he was only 1 year and 6 days younger than me. Everyone thought he was hot, and he had a girlfriend, so I figured no chance of getting him to go with me. Then one day he wrote me a note, that got passed to me through a friend, that said that I had " a nice ass" and then I started to think that girlfriend might not be as important to him as it seemed.

I would take the "long way" to class because I knew I would run into him in the hall and I could chat with him, but usually his girlfriend was glued to his arm. Soon after that (although it seemed FOREVER) they just broke up, and after that, my ex let me know that he didn't want to go to prom with me. So I asked Evan, and he, by the time I asked him, had been "arranged" as a date for his brother's girlfriend's cousin (decipher that one) at the time. So by the time I asked, he was all upset about why didn't I ask earlier. But luckily we were both going to prom. So I went with a different guy friend, who looked great in a tux.... but I spent the entire night at prom dancing with Evan, gave him my garter, and then we spent after prom together playing games and basketball at afterprom (at a rec center.)

So we kind of did the "we're not technically dating" thing then, because school was out for the summer. He went to France over the summer and one of my best friends went too, so she was my fly on the wall. I would go to town to see him and hang out with friends at the park while they played basketball. I would ride around with him and friends. At this time I was still "friends" with my ex- and he was leading me on pretty heavily. Apparently he wanted his cake and to eat it too. Luckily we had mutual friends (who were guys) who I have to credit and give thanks to- to this day. I remember wanting to go out on a date with Evan but being totally worried about my ex and what he would think. I was at the friend's house and It was the time of summer festivals, and I had on a tiny denim skirt (I was much skinnier then) and a cute top and sandals, and they were always saying "you look hot, forget him and go out on a date!" and eventually the only way they got me to forget about the ex and move on, was because they told me that he was messing around with other girls and they were able to name names, which he blatantly denied and hid the entire time- but I knew better now because once I heard those names, things just sort of went "ding" in my head. Now I knew why that girl waited by my locker each day for me, and why she was always talking about my ex and trying to be my best buddy. She used to buy bags of skittles and pick out all the colors and leave the yellow ones in my locker because yellow was my favorite color. She wanted to be my best buddy, and she was screwing my ex behind my back.

So right then and there, I knew it was time to move forward. We were not meant to be together. Period. If you love someone, you don't cheat.

So Evan and I scheduled a date. He didn't show up. I got all ready and was all dressed and waiting by the door and he never showed. I was crushed. AND I was pissed! The answer I got later (and frequently the first two years we dated) was "plans changed." So we rescheduled (can't believe I even did that- from this, I sound like I am walked all over, but I am really the very exact opposite personality!) and then he also didn't show up. A friend called me and she had SEEN HIM in town with my EX! @!*#)*?^ So I was pissed. Come to find out, Ex knew about the date and was trying to sabotage it by getting Evan drunk. Anyway, Weeks later I spent a whole Saturday with the Ex, and had a great day, and then that night had a date with Evan, and when we drove through town, who was standing on the sidewalk with friends but Ex, with his jaw on the ground. After all, I had spent the day with him and was going on a date with Evan that night, and never mentioned it. It made me feel SOOOOOO good. I will never, as long as I live, forget the look on ex's face that day on the sidewalk. I was cured. No more broked heart!

So from that point forward, I thought about Evan. We dated on and off. I remember I started college in August and he went back to High School. I started a job at Farm King part time. I was supposed to cover the Ag department, and work part time around my school schedule. After 3 days on the job they had me working 10 hour days and covering three departments, including plumbing and electrical, which I knew nothing about. The last straw was the day that I went to work wearing the black skirt they had hired me in, and they told me it was too short and it was unprofessional. I was so pissed, it was only too short because they didn't have the right sized smocks, and they were so long they went to my knees and you couldn't tell I even had pants on. So I stomped up the the manager's office, called him a pig because if that skirt was good enough to hire me in, it was good enough to work in. Then I quit and marched right out the door and right to Evan's house. I told him the whole story and I felt much better. He took care of me.

That was August. in September Evan took my to the tatoo parlor because I wanted my nose pierced. I was 17. They never asked how old I was. My dad saw it and grounded me for 3 months. on October 20th, Evan asked me out. He'd been coming to my house for a month because I was grounded, and Evan started missing me. We went on a walk and we were up on a hill surrounded by pine trees and we were lying on our backs looking at the stars and he said "will you go out with me?" and I said "No, I am grounded, you know I can't go anywhere." and he got all flustered and I said "Oh, like be your GIRLFRIEND go out" and he was like Yeah, and I said yes. And he hugged me and gave me a kiss, and that was exactly 9 years ago this October 20th.

We made it through my college and his high school, and through him moving to Davenport, Iowa for school and me staying home, an hour from him. That was hard and I was sad. His living arrangements at the time made him upset, and so when he came home, I was the happiest person there is. His mom wasn't happy he was home, but boy was I ever. I had enjoyed going to spend weekends with him, but I missed him being right there. I would cry so much on Sundays when we had to split up, he bought me a gameboy color to play and I ate Ice cream every Sunday night. It was dramatic. Not long after he moved home, we moved in together. And we have lived together for 5 years this month.

I remember once, we had been dating 4 months, and it was just a couple of days before our first ever Valentine's Day, and we were sitting in his car and he tried to break up with me. I was completely panicked. I thought "he got what he wanted, now he is done." But deep down I had this feeling that this was not coming from him, and if it was, it was pure panic. I talked him out of it, and ever since then, we've been together. I can't imagine ever being with anyone else. No matter how mad he makes me, or what he does that gets to me, I would do anything for him. I will be eternally faithful and I will love him forever. He is the one. And what is really strange is, I have known it all along. I would feel that when I used to see him in the hallway, and those heartbroken feelings from the ex were the only things stopping me. Once I realized that the ex and I really were not meant to be together, I started to see much clearer. And I started to feel much more important, much more wanted, and much more special.

Evan has never ever once raised his hand to me and he never will. That was very important to me after being in a relationship that made me feel unsafe. (although we joke about the clock he threw once, like 8 years ago. It hit the wall like 5 feet from my head and made me cry.... I said "You threw a clock at me" and he said It was NO WHERE NEAR YOU! and I cried anyway..... it's an ongoing joke that I have never let go- you had to be there) and He has taken me millions of places and been incredibly patient with the things I don't know about the world. He has shared everything that is his and bought me flowers, and gifts for every little holiday. He doesn't forget an important day andHe knows EXACTLY what I like, whether it be food or clothes or anything. He is supportive and loving and I wouldn't live with anyone else. He's the guy who offers to pump your gas and drives up to the door to pick you up when it's cold or raining. From Day one he has opened every door for me, carried everything heavy, and been the gentleman that every woman deserves. I have to totally thank his dad for that, he taught his son how to treat a lady.

The best thing I can wish for any woman is that she finds an Evan to be with forever. And I don't care if that sounds sappy. Because it is the truth. My biggest fear is that something will happen to him. Because that is the one thing that I don't think I could make it through.