I've been sharing with you the story of how/why I married so young- and boy am I bored of it already! Or maybe it's just the 23 year long part of the story. Just ask my husband, he'd tell you that, "The last 23 years have seemed like FOREVER!' (and then he'd duck.)
Like the great Paul Harvey said...'Here is the rest of the story...'

Shortly after we met and began dating, he (my now husband, then boyfriend) left to join the military. Our first years consisted of letters & calls, with a few short visits scattered through out. Then his family moved across country and his visits could only be to there instead. So one Christmas his family paid for a plane ticket so I could join them there. He took me to the highest mountain point where we watched the sunset, & then got down on one knee and proposed.

Back at home word traveled fast in my itty bitty town and everyone wanted to see my ring as 'proof'. That summer I decided to move into my sisters apt in a larger town close by so that I could graduate early. I only needed two credits and my small school did not offer such a program. Then right before my Senior year started I was offered to come live in Missouri with an Aunt so that I could be closer to him in Ga. Yup- I gave up on the chance to graduate early for love. ( ...insert cheesy "awww"'s ...) By the time I got moved to the new state, school had already started and I was placed in useless classes just to fill my schedule & put where ever there was room. I had 2 Newspaper classes. Not two different ones- same class, twice a day. They put me in Marching Band. I hadn't played an instrument since 7th grade. They literally told me to 'Puff up my cheeks and fake it, because no one will know the difference.' Then there was Yearbook & Study Hall. I also had to take 9th Gr. Economics & P.E. as the credit criteria was different in the two states.

He drove 8 hrs each way to stay the weekend with me. (and yes, he remained a virgin the entire time. ) I got a waitress job in a chowder house that, I kid you not, was just like in the Free Credit Report .Com commercials. I wasn't nearly as cute as that guy in my uniform, and I was horrible at waitressing. I began to hate everything my days involved. We both realized we were just wasting time in order to 'do the right thing.' We decided that as soon as I turned 17 we'd get married in a teeny private ceremony & get an apt. close to his base, and I'd start my Senior yr. over the next year. It helped that I normally would have graduated at 17 anyways so I felt I had a freebie year to play with.

So there I was again- the buzz of the lunch line as first one person noticed my ring and others gathered around to witness this anomaly. The most curious and outspoken ones were those who had just previously been discussing their swollen pregnant bellies, and who was on their first, second, or third. But 'I' was weird. I was apparently doing something 'strange' and unheard of. Yes, I wrote my own tardy notes. (Yes, they made me turn them in even though I was the guardian of myself.) And yes, I barely graduated because most of those tardys were counted as 'Absent' whether I was there the rest of the day or not, and I almost fell under the line of the minimum days of attendance. But it was not because of bad grades.

It's kind of funny now to look back at how even the teachers did not know how to treat me. I got singled out many times as thinking I was smarter, or above reproach, therefore making them either be a bit harder on me or try to avoid me entirely. One of my teachers was a MENSA member. (a national club for highly intellectual types with the highest IQ's) Seems she couldn't find much wrong with a report I turned in so she kept me from getting an A by docking me for using a word 'that wasn't my own'. It wasn't even a BIG word. It was the little, albeit not often used word, 'Aura'; which was not even used in the story I wrote the report on. I had to argue for the points back - but she would only 'meet me half way', because she 'still didn't believe that I came up with that on my own' and gave me back just enough pts. to not raise the grade. Oh well, it's all a funny story to me now and it's my comic relief any time I ponder the irony of so many of life's experiences.