Thanks for the Memories

Spending time with my best friend, going for a ride in his car, watching the fireworks from a truck bed, joking about everything and talking about nothing. Talking about nothing especially when it came close for me to leave for Basic Training.
A late afternoon walk through the seaside town I lived in for a while.
Sitting at one of the many illegal beach bonfires singing Jesus Take the Wheel with CJ, the only girl I've ever really been able to blend voices with because we were both comfortable enough with each other not to feel the need to let the other outshine or to outshine the other, while a friend played guitar and the guys we were not so secretly head over heels (or so we thought) over sat with us.
Mending a broken heart by sneaking off at midnight with Tyler and the rest of the gang to go find the abandoned prison, climb the sniper towers and then play hide and seek before heading back with just an hour or two to spare before needing to be up for PT in the morning, driving way to fast and daring each other to stand up through the sunroof.
Mending two broken hearts with ice cream and one of those GIANT candied apples from the little candy store by the bay (covered in milk chocolate, coated in gummy bears and drizzled with dark chocolate, of course).
Turning Breathe by Shania Twain into a duet while dancing to our own music next to the dam and under the stars.
Driving out WAY passed the butchering company to lay in a truck bed in the middle of a cornfield and talk about life and the fears of becoming an adult with real responsibilities.

Isn't it odd how, when you find yourself truly happy, the memories that were once bittersweet are suddenly just sweet? How can you wish for anything different when you know the happiness you thought you felt at another time doesn't hold a candle to the joy of something as lame as "knitting" a blanket while sharing the couch during a Monday Night Football game? But thanks, anyway, to each of them for the (now) fond memories that are really stories, little pieces of thread that, when woven together, create the pattern that is me.

Almost 5 years ago, I told him to find someone else to pester and slammed the door in his face after our very first conversation. Little did I know, within months I'd be infatuated and, within years, I'd be incapable of imagining life without him.