Hand In Hand: Kissed A Lot Of Frogs (Happy 5 Years Together!)

This was orignally a guest post over at Domesticated Bliss last year but I thought it would be appropriate to share this with you now (in honor of being with Michael for FIVE YEARS total now) in case you hadn't read it yet.

I got married at 20 years old. Yes, I know. I was very young! But in my defense, even though I got hitched at twenty, I had plenty of experience with dating. Enough experience to know that the relationship I had with Michael was something different and special.
You see, it all started back in elementary school. You know, the days when you would "go out" with someone for a week and it was a huge deal? Yeah, I did that. I still have some love notes stashed away from those days because I find them so fun to read every 5 years or so.
Then, junior high school. Oh...there were crushes. I had my first peck on the lips in 8th grade. He broke up with me the next day because I wouldn't make out with him by the locker rooms after school in front of all his friends.
High school. This is when it all started getting a little more complicated! My first real kiss was a real monumental moment in time. His name was Tristan. He was a real "bad boy" and we flirted in gym class. As the bell rang and kids started heading back to the locker rooms to change, Tristan grabbed me and kissed me right in front of his friends, my friend (who, btw, I just talked to about this for the first time and she said it was hilarious), and probably a ton of other people too. You would think I would be traumatized by such a thing, but I was just so relieved to have my first kiss over and done with. I had been worried about not knowing how to kiss and now I knew! Or, at least, sort of did.
I did, however, swear off having a "boyfriend" until I was 16 after that. My family moved to Orange County during my freshman year and I took that as an opportunity to change my ways. Ha!
First there was Daniel. He was in my friends band. We dated for a couple weeks and I felt so proud to have the lead singer in a band as my boyfriend. He dumped me because my parents scared him.
Then there was Jered. He was a little younger than me, played water polo, and was known to be a bit of a hothead. He cheated on me, I still kept him around, and then he dumped me anyway because his friends were telling him I wasn't hot enough for him.
I went on a few dates with this guy named Mike. He had long blonde hair and wore neon green short shorts on one of our dates. He also had this tradition of buying his dates a huge slurpee cup from 7-11. It was my trophy for dating him, I guess.
Jordan. He was graduated already, worked for real estate, had a car, and his mom was barely ever home. We had fun. He told me green wasn't my color. My family loved him. He joined my church. I got bored with him and wanted out. He still clung on for a while. I was a little mean to him because he wouldn't get a clue. Not very proud of that!
Matt was a friend of a friend. He was 20 years old and mature. Sort of. He wouldn't take me to my prom because he felt it would be silly to go at his age. We did, however, dress up as if we were going, and then go to dinner and cosmic bowling.

After I graduated, I realized how attached to him I was getting and it scared me. I was only 18! I wanted to play the field! So, I told him I didn't want to be exclusive.
Things got a little crazy for me after that.
There was the alcoholic marine who fell in love with me after a few weeks and I broke up with him because he went to a strip club in Tijuana with his marine buddies. Then there was a sweet guy who was training to be a fireman, was super tall, and left a rose and sweet note on my car while I was working. But once again, too attached to me. I do feel bad for how I ended it with him. I was just too young to settle down! After/during him (crazy times, I tell ya) I was having a little thing with this other guy who I knew from high school. That was just for fun. Perfect for what I wanted! But even that got old.
I decided it was time for in a change in my life. I moved out of my parents home and in with some friends about 7 hours away, back where I used to live. Then, despite the fact that all I wanted was to be single, this guy was very persistent. Do you remember my first kiss from junior high? Him. We dated for a year until I broke up with him. That was an UGLY breakup. Without going into too much detail, it was one of the worst times of my life because even after we were apart, he continued to do things just to hurt me. I moved back home.

While I was dealing with healing from that horrendous situation, I started dating someone else. It lasted a few months, we had some good times, but I didn't feel anything more for him. I was going to wait until after his finals to break up with him (aren't I kind?*facepalm*) but he beat me to the punch. He knew it wasn't feeling right.
So, then I started dating Michael. He had just broken up with my friend, and I had just dated his friend, so there were definitely some hurt feelings. We almost stopped dating because we were losing all of our friends and didn't know if it was worth it, but in the end decided that what we had going on was special and worth everyone hating us. Even though it was hard to not have any friends for a while, we fell in love and that was enough.We have no regrets!