Yellow couches, road trips, and I love you.

Once P and I were both back in Knoxville, we hung out a lot. I was around town until it was time to move to Georgia, and he was starting his new job. It was only about 3 weeks, but we spent pretty much every day together, mostly as his place since I was staying with the fam. I noticed when I first came to visit his apartment that he had this amazing yellow love seat. I'm talking, mustard yellow, and the style you'd find at your grandmothers. But, if you know me, you know how much I adore the color yellow. As it turns out, this love seat was part of a couch/love seat/chair combo one of his friends on base was getting rid of. Did I want him to see if I could have the other two pieces? Absolutely. My mom agreed to store them for me until the move to Georgia, but how, oh how, would we get them to her house?

Remember how I mentioned that I'm the only girl P's every said those three magic words to? I'm also the only girl he's ever taken home to his parents that wasn't clearly labeled as "friend." So we drive up to his parents house to borrow his dad's truck. I try to be as polite as possible, since I have no idea if they've ever heard my name before. They are the sweetest people ever, and of course we bond by poking fun at P. It's a glorious first meeting, if I do say so.  After we get the furniture situated at my mom's house, we decide to meet with some of my friends for dinner. Shauhn and Lindsay are some of my oldest, closest friends, who know alllllll about my commitment issues, so they are pretty excited to meet this "new" boy in my life. You'll meet Shauhnie Poo and Linds in their own posts, but suffice it to say, they've been pushing me to commit to a "nice guy" for a very, very long time. This day, this yellow furniture, would be connected to our story more than we could've ever guessed.

Moving to Georgia was both exciting and terrifying. P and I still hadn't really decided what we were, I had no friends in this new town, and I was starting my first ever big girl job. P has every other Monday off, and he came down to see me a lot. I accrued one vacation day per month, so getting home was a struggle for me until the holiday breaks. P, however, was very kind to spend many hours in a car just to see me. I made friends, they met P, and of course they adored him. I kept getting the question, "So are you together?"

In mid-October 2008, we went to see one his favorite artists, Ryan Adams. Since my country and pop music radio doesn't tell me to listen to Ryan Adams, I had no idea who he was, but P was really excited, so off I go to meet him in Atlanta. We're at this concert, which is actually pretty good, and P says, "So, I need to tell you something. I love you." I mean, I KNEW this, but hearing it was a totallllly different story. So I take a big drink of my beer and say, "I can't say that back right now." WHAT!? I would be devastated if someone said that to me but here these words are coming out of my mouth. P smiles and just says it's okay. Remember the patience thing? It's amazing. It took me about 3 weeks to admit that I loved him, too. He smiled sweetly and just said, "I know. I love you, too." So there it was. No fireworks, no passionate embrace, just love. And, that was enough.

So it's all rainbows and butterflies and long phone calls, for about a month. Long distance is hard. Really hard. Really, really hard. It's even harder when a grandparent dies, a car dies, the holidays are coming up, and the reality of seven hours and 400 miles apart sets in. After Christmas, everything just got to be too much. On Valentine's weekend, we met in Atlanta. We'd be fighting for over a month. We talked about the distance, the fighting, the chance of me ever moving home, but nothing was OK. So on Valentine's Day 2009, in Olympic Park in Atlanta, P broke my heart. We didn't speak for 5 months. Then, I mailed him a pair of shorts.

Like I said, this is not your typical love story.