a good pair of shoes {part 3}

It’s funny, when you’re nearing milestones in life, and you look back. You start to realize how the important moments were sprinkled in and the beginnings of a really great story began, before we even realize we’re a part of it.

This is the story of us. If you missed part one, It’s worth it.

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Think Cinderella. In reverse.

And part two, with Jake Ryan, The Love Calculator, and Will Robinson.

{via the love calculator}

And for supplemental reading, you can see why I originally referred to Jamin as a barbaric redneck. From his perspective, here. 

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And without further ado, part 3… we hope it was worth the wait:

I remember walking to the small metal box that contained our mail just one building down from our apartment. Sophomore year was on in full swing, and fall was in the air despite the usual Alabama heat. I jingled the keys to open the door with a tiny creak to check the contents wedged awkwardly in the confining space. Leafing through them in casual curiosity, I found our first electricity bill, a note to one roommate, and a blue envelope. It was addressed to me.

There were butterflies when I recognized the now familiar scrawl as his handwriting, postmarked two days earlier from Nashville. My hands immediately went into shaky mode, while I ripped it open a little too eagerly. It was only afterwards that I looked around, curious if I should play it cool in case anyone saw me. Perpetually awkward is how I roll.

On the inside, was a card. Out of sight out of mind? It read. And when I opened it: Not a chance.

And a small note, saying he missed me.

Oh the days of little notes and trinkets and butterflies. Someone really should take away smart phones.

That player, he certainly knew how to play. He’d now officially upped the anté with cards, and borderline cheesy/vague ones at that. The most disturbing part, was that I kind of liked the cheese.

So this was the game we would play.

For the short remainder of the summer, after that hide and seek on the playground moment, there had been kissing. And more kissing. 

Okay fine. Lots of kissing. And neither of us seemed to mind that much, even though I’d taken a solemn vow to myself that there would be no involvement whatsoever on my part. I mean, these were the days if ever, right? Then we went our separate ways to do our own things. He to Nashville to begin grad school, me a vacation with my family. And a few months later, I was back in Auburn. But we were still in touch. With the cards and everything.

Still. There was no denying those constant, reoccurring butterflies.

I tried everything. I even avoided his phone calls while my roommates rolled their eyes and held out the receiver, waiting. These were the days before cell phones, and I thought it might help if I was a bit aloof. They held that receiver at the end of an eternally long spiral cord, connecting Jamin and me… our two worlds linked by {now archaic} design. Said roommates became pros at ignoring me and all possible universal hand signals from the other side of the room that I “wasn’t in right now”. They stood, waiting for me to take it from their limp grasp, mid eye roll. I was basically roomie shamed for playing the avoidance card. For trying to “play the player”.

Yes, they all agreed that he had it coming the previous year. But not this time.

This time, he was genuine. And this time, I was just being stupid.

Even though his was a kiss to end all kisses… even though those brown eyes sent me into heart palpitations… and insert other generic romance novel nonsense here… {Never mind that I was counting down the days until I would see him again}. I didn’t like the idea of being tied down, probably had a few trust issues, and wasn’t quite finished dating other people. At least this was what I told myself when I caught my mind wandering to thoughts of him.

I certainly wasn’t sure how I felt about it just yet. This wasn’t a movie. Things didn’t work out this way, all nicely tied up in a great meet-your-future-husband-gift-wrapped-package. I’d been burned before, and needed a repeated douse of hot/icy water to the face to help me move on. Preferably like this a-la Inigo Montoya…

Because I was in trouble, drunk with love. {Ps that scene always stressed me out.}

Before you decide you hate me or label me as pompous and assuming, I was only 19… nearing 20. So that means I was. And in my defense, I was not very loose with the lippage {Remember, pointillism Jesus}. I’d simply vowed to stop dating late into my Freshman year and hated the idea of being serious. Yet there he was. This tall dark and handsome someone who literally resembled my childhood crush of Jordan Knight a-la NKOTB. But it was so much more than that.

And that was what freaked me out.

Before I knew it, he was making a trip to Auburn to ‘visit his friends’, and conveniently drop by. Before I knew it, I was making a trip to visit him and his friends on a camping trip {this involved me being directionally challenged and lost in Atlanta… the original destination was Chattanooga. There was a rescue – it was humiliatingly sad.} And before I knew it, we were kind of… together. I even met his family.

It was still fall quarter when I saw the poster on the student center wall in between classes. Disney was in town, as in THE Disney. And they were holding auditions for internships in their College Program. So I decided to interview for fun. I mean, it was Disney. Why not?

Fast forward to a cold winter night, sometime in January when the L word was dropped by him, reciprocated by me. I realized I’d never felt this way about anyone. I know. Cue the Fred Savage dry heaving.

And so a long distance, unintentionally, not so casually exclusive relationship… it became.

I was all about the labels.

It’s funny now, looking back, how we think we know what love is. It starts with those butterflies but evolves and grows each year with a delicate mix of hard work, patience and forgiveness and so many other elements that are fine tuned with time. We were so young, and we only thought we knew. It’s quite comical that we were only at the very brink of something truly amazing.

Before long, I had an acceptance letter waiting for me in that same metal mailbox, with instructions on where to show up spring quarter to begin training in Orlando. Cue mixed emotions. Spring quarter was weeks away on the horizon, and the best part? Jamin had plans to pull the plug on the long distance relationship. He found a way to finish his Master’s program in occasional classes via Nashville and was soon to begin an internship, in of all places, while finishing up school… in Auburn. We would actually be living in the same town… and it so happened with his friends in the same apartment complex. It was a real chance to remove all doubts about this long distance, heavily disclaimer-labeled relationship stuff lasting, and see where it would take us.

Though I didn’t care to admit it, he was basically giving up Nashville for me.

Yet there, in the meantime on my desk, was this official Mickey Mouse letter. And it was waiting for my official response.

When I told my parents I didn’t want to go, my dad informed me it was an opportunity he wasn’t going to let me miss. My parents actually adored Jamin, but they also knew what their daughter needed to do. In retrospect, he was right, even though I was doing the facepalm of regret for signing up in the first place.

So when spring break rolled around, and Jamin came to town, I was leaving. The irony was not lost on us. My parents had relocated temporarily to Boca Raton Florida for a few months, and he spent spring break with my family, before I made the big Orlando move. He helped me relocate in to my apartment. I took him to the airport, he hopped on a plane, and we parted ways.

Suddenly, I kind of resented Mickey.

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There are definitive moments in the beginnings of a relationship, and this would be our first real test. A crossroads of sorts, where we would both be faced with hard choices. Because something happened.

I started to have a lot of fun in Orlando.

I ended up moving in with some fellow Auburn students who were doing the same program on the same schedule. So our training and our work schedule began. I kind of loved it. We worked through our classes, then took our jobs in the parks. We quickly found that the Disney College Program is really code for cheap labor though it still looks great on your resumé – and in their defense, I gleaned a lot of knowledge from the bottom-most rung (see what I did there?) This was the time to embrace the adventure, and absolutely run with it. I even started entertaining the idea of staying there.

That was when things got a little rocky on the relationship front. It was late one night a few months later, when we broke it off over the phone. We both cut it short and decided we needed to take a break. Okay fine. At the risk of now looking like a complete jerk, I broke up with him. It wasn’t working, and in retrospect, I can’t even remember why.

All of that not wanting to be tied down stuff kind of escalated when I was in the middle of having a great time. There was no pressure from him, but the pretense of the commitment thing in the midst of living it up with all my newfound freedom was sending me over the edge. Teenage relationship angst. I was jinxing us by over thinking. A crime I am rarely innocent of.

Between that little unresolved issue and the lure of the unknown in Orlando and all the possibilities it held… it was suddenly too much to resist. At the time, I thought I might stay. At the time, it seemed like a good idea to look for a permanent position.

We didn’t talk for weeks.

My heart was broken. And I needed to figure out what I was supposed to do. I missed his laugh. His unique angle on everything. The ways he challenged me. My best friend was suddenly gone, and I was torn. I think the whole moving back to Auburn under the pretense of an internship had spooked me a little. He was older than me, and he knew what he wanted. So he gave me my space.

Those socks tho.

A few weeks later, my friends and I were nearing the end of our internship, when I was pulling a day shift in the park. A woman who was filling in from the casting department walked right up to me with a gigantic smile on her face.

It was a brief convo that went a bit like this: “…I’m telling you. You’re the perfect fit to be ‘friends with’ Cinderella,” she proclaimed in a low voice so as not to destroy the magic for any passersby. “I see all the girls who come in. Your features are great, and you’re the perfect height and everything for that dress.”

She had me at that dress. To say I was flattered, was an understatement. Cue visions of self important moments, parades, and that ridiculously perfect fairytale in my head. Surely, this was a role I’d been unknowingly preparing for all of my life. Surely, this was my chance to do something crazy and fun to escape my self-induced heartache. This was what I needed to do.

She handed me her information, with dates. She told me all I had to do was show up. I was a shoo-in, and it was in the next few days. Of course it wouldn’t all just work out like that. There would be training, and time taken to learn the ropes in a masked character, all the things one must conquer to earn the title of an official Disney Princess.

Just in time for me to decide what to do before we pulled the curtain on this last scene.

I folded up the piece of paper, and put it away until my shift was over. I started a mental list of pros and cons.

At the top of my list, Jamin Mills was the single most positive con.

And all that time, he was completely patient with me.

He didn’t crowd me when I needed space. He didn’t call a million times. He simply made his feelings known and then let them simmer. To say he certainly hadn’t slipped my mind, would be a complete understatement. I missed him more than anything. I even called my Auburn friends for undercover reports, solemnly swearing them in to be spies for me. What was he doing? How did he act? What was he up to? Was he sad? Inquiring minds needed to know, and I kind of needed him to languish with heartache. He played it cool on the phone but the verdict was in via said spies: pitiful.

Let’s just say that Jamin Mills knew what he wanted, and he played his cards well.

And it was up to me to make a big decision. I could choose an entirely new path. But I would never know, if I didn’t just go for it.

I remember at some point, around a week later, I had plans to go to that audition. It’s not every day that a gal gets to say she was ‘friends with’ Cinderella, after all. This would be so much fun… how could I pass it up? The casting lady’s words, echoed in my head. “All you  have to do is show up.” But I felt a bit like Alice, tumbling down that rabbit hole of what-ifs.

And I couldn’t shake him.

Or that tug at my heart.

And when it came down to the bottom line, no list of pros and cons could compare.

At the end of the story, pretending to be a princess, in a pretend castle with a pretend prince, would only be a weak pretend bandaid for a real broken heart.

A week later, our internship was over. And I was packing up my belongings to return to Sweet Home Alabama. I even cranked up the music as I crossed the state line. He met me in the parking lot of that same apartment, beside the same mailboxes with a warm embrace, and a grossly-oversized, metallic Mickey Mouse Balloon.

In retrospect, we often laugh at this story: My one claim to almost-fame, and the fact that I chose him. I chose my home. Where he was patiently waiting.

I didn’t forget that.

I never will.

Jamin often tells people, the choice was to be with my real prince charming. I {laughingly} always agree.

I mean, why act it out after all, when I could have the real happily ever after?

And that is the story of how we met… and how we ended up staying together. Who knew… All it takes is a good pair of shoes?