It was the fall of 1984...the story begins in the band room of Chaparral High School. I was a sophomore on the flag line and he was a freshman trumpet player. We had just gotten back from the Peer Leadership Retreat. A mutual friend of ours, Marni, called "James", to stand up and have the rest of us give him a 'battery recharge' by clapping for him. I can still picture it to this day; this adorable brown eyed freshman tentatively stood up in front of me and 149 of our band peers. His eyes looked like saucers, you know he wanted to kill Marni at that moment. I was standing down in the front with the rest of the color guard team, and I was in love. Well, not 'in love' exactly, but I HAD to meet this adorable "little guy". (He came up to my nose at the time) After we were dismissed, I ran up to him, wrapped my arms around him, hugged him and introduced myself. *Note, I have not introduced myself to anyone like this since. While I was just an enthusiastic extrovert and excited to make a new friend, he on the other hand, was petrified of "The Amazon". A couple of weeks later, I saw him in the guidance counselor's office behind a pile of books. I went from being Scary Amazon Woman to his future best friend. :)
Throughout our budding friendship, we had crushes on each other, here and there, but never at the same time for some reason. One story J likes to share is when we were at a mutual friend's party one time. I was dating someone at the time. He built up the courage to ask me to dance, and my reply was "But Jamie, I already have a boyfriend". Whenever he shares that, I feel so lame, but thinking back objectively, I didn't want to be unfaithful to my boyfriend. Don't think the bf would have minded, but I made a judgment call and besides, he gets to dance with me anytime he wants.
We were best friends! There were countless talks about life and religion, double-dates, family parties w/friends, band trips or hanging out at his place. I asked J to my senior prom, but he had already asked someone else...sniff sniff...so I asked another boy who became my bf for a couple of years, ya snooze ya lose, right? lol When that bf "dumped me", my sister told me I needed to get over him and get together w/J, my best friend... I told her through my tears, that we were just friends, it wasn't like that w/Jamie. Little did I know, I guess things were 'like that'... As soon as J heard the news, he swooped in the for kill...as he says...he wasn't going to miss another opportunity. :-) One November night in 1989, we talked until dawn and we knew that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.
We were married 2 1/2 years later and the rest, as they say, is history.
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