We are pretty certain that we met in the summer of '89.  

I was going into my freshman year of high school and he was going to be a sophomore.  I distinctly remember his maroon and white half-shirt for football practice. Oh, and those grey sweats. :)

I thought he was the cutest boy I had ever seen....those eyes.  My sister and I were staying at his house with our other siblings. His parents were babysitting us. He and I were close in age so we hung out. 

I was so nervous to hang out with him. He welcomed me into his room. He loved music. Rock specifically. He played Bass and was in a garage band. We played a lot of music on the stereo with our cassette tapes. I remember at that time I had 3 cassette tapes that I loved. Michael Bolton, Bad Company, and Def Lepard. He didn't approve of the first two...so we listened to the Hysteria cassette over and over. 

I thought he was so stinking adorable and had no idea he thought the same of me. He would smile at me ..... with his dimpled side-eyed smile. It would melt me. 

It was the biggest case of puppy love I would ever know. I wrote him a love letter, lined paper perfectly folded into a tucked square note. I stuck it in one of my drawers to save for the next time I got to see him. The note was discovered, our secret was out, and the parents decided they needed to separate us. I mean, I was probably 13/14 and he was 15/16.  We don't blame them. He went off to Oregon for the summer and my sister and I went back home to our mom.

We never saw or heard from each other again....until 30+ years later.  I remember asking my dad about him about 17 years ago and was told he was married and had three boys. I was happy for him and moved on. No matter how old I got, or what was going on in my life, if I even heard his name, I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear. It was almost embarrassing.

He told me he never stopped talking about me all through life when we reconnected. Our first conversation was on Facebook messenger. We discussed our memories...being careful to just see if we both remembered it the same. Our connection was once again, instant. We shared all that we had been through in life. Caught up on current situations. Got to know each other now that we are adults. All before seeing each other in person again.

Once we were together again, we couldn't imagine living without each other any longer. We had already waited 30 years.