(Note: From now until Valentine's Day I will be chronicling how Mr. Blue Eyes and I met, as well as sharing some personal journal excerpts from the early days/weeks/years of our relationship. WARNING: Journal excerpts will contain large amounts of over-the-top, thick as maple syrup, fresh from the pine tree SAP. I was young and in love and I wrote about it shamelessly. If you are allergic to sap you may want to take a Claritin or just avoid these posts all together. If not, read on or click HERE to see a list of the archived posts.)

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Back in the summer of 1998 Mr. Blue Eyes and I were running free, sowing our wild oats, hanging onto life by the seat of our pants, and completely unaware that the other existed, or that our lives were about to intersect at just the right place and moment in time.

Twice.

It was strange that we were, in fact, unaware of one another because our older siblings were good friends back in their days of running wild and free and sowing their wild oats, yet Mr. Blue Eyes and I never crossed paths. Not until one hot summer day by the lake, that is.

I was spending the weekend at my two sisters' lake cabins, with my sisters and all of their clan, of course. All of my sisters are older than me by ten years or more (yet none of them seem to have any gray hair... strange...) and so their kids weren't that much younger than me. By some act of fate, my nephew and I decided to go over to a neighboring lake where some friends from around home also had a cabin. I can't remember how it all came about, but there was something in the works about fixing me up with someone's cousin who would be there. At the time I don't think I really gave it much thought, other than that this guy might be what one would consider a 'wild oat' that needed sowing.

(Sorry, I'm done with the 'running free' and 'wild oat' talk now. It's getting away from me.)

We arrived at the cabin to a group of old friends and some new faces. There was a festival going on in the nearby town that weekend, so anyone who was anyone in our circle of family/friends/people we knew from around home was there. Lots of boating. Lots of laughing. Lots of sarcasm and general full-of-ourselfedness. Lots of libations.

And there was this someone that I was supposed to meet. He seemed nice. He seemed respectable. He seemed like someone I might go on a date with. There was possibility there.

Then there was this other guy. He was the younger brother of a friend of my older siblings. I'd known his older sister for as long as I could remember, but I had never met him. He was... He was...

What's the word?

Drunk.

Somewhat inebriated.

And he seemed to be a little bit intrigued with me. I kept catching him watching me... Watching me with his crystal blue eyes. It caught me off guard... Should I be flattered or unnerved? Throughout the day I felt like a skittish gazelle (I've always wanted to think of myself as a gazelle... I think now is a good time) that he was trying to approach carefully lest I flee.

Sometime late in the night he made his move. I was sitting on a bench at the end of the dock by myself, and I remember that it was very quiet and peaceful, just me and the sound of the water. I heard footsteps coming down the dock behind me and there he was, smiling and sweet. He wanted me to go for a midnight swim with him; I wanted no part of that. We hadn't planned on staying the night so I had no extra clothes with me. He hopped in the water and grabbed a volleyball and we started playing catch with it. Every time he threw it up to me I was sprinkled with water, finally to the point where I was soaking wet, so I decided I might as well hop in too.

We splashed around a little and talked. I didn't know him. I didn't know him at all, yet being with him felt safe. But I was still wary. We walked back up to the cabin and I can still see his face as he leaned against a tree and tried to convince me to go on a boat ride with him. I firmly declined. "You're a little bit drunk and I really don't know you," I thought to myself. Going for a midnight boat ride didn't seem like a good idea.

I returned to the cabin, soaking wet, and ended up sleeping in the shirt of the other guy and uneventfully leaving the next morning. A few days later, the other guy called me and asked me on a date and I said yes. The next night my midnight swim partner called and asked me out as well and I turned him down. The two of them were friends and I didn't think I wanted to be dating both of them at the same time. I dated the other guy for the next nine months and didn't speak to or think about Mr. Blue Eyes again until the following summer, when we met again for the second time...

The second time, when there was no water around to drown out the sparks...