The Beginning of the Anna Story
August 23, 2002, 6:47 p.m.

Oh well! It didn't work...my latest entry which I was hoping would go back in the queue here to Sunday, didn't end up there. It's the one just prior to this. I was hoping, but at least I know for future reference. At least it kept the right date and time. :)

So, because I need to rant, and because I want to clear things up in my head, and because it will probably make semi-interesting reading for all my adoring fans (Ha, ha...I know, I know. No one reads this but me...just let me pretend, wouldja???) I am going to go into the Anna story, which I've been alluding to for the last week.

So, Anthony and I met a little more than 2 years ago at a computer company where I was working through a temp agency and he had a permanent job. This is when I still planned on staying out in California only for the summer in order to earn tuition money. I was going to go back to Colorado and pick up the pieces of my life that I'd scattered to the winds with the death of a friend. Truth be told, I think I was running away for the summer. I couldn't handle hanging out around Greeley. (Don't worry, it's a small town in north-eastern Colorado. If you've never heard of it, don't be surprised, neither has most of Colorado.) But the story about Joseph is for some other time and will cause much saddness and tears as well as laughter and joy at remembering. But I digress...to an extreme.

So, Anthony and I meet at this computer company. (Did I mention that I was an atheist at this point??? I was.) He feels sorry for me because, you know, I'm the new kid and I sit at my desk by myself every lunch break. (Yes, it felt surprisingly similar to school. The only difference was I didn't have to migrate from room to room...) We have lunch a couple of times, and he raves about this girl Anna, who is the be all and end all of perfect girls. She's smart, she's funny, she's pretty, she's petite, she's a Christian, she graduated from college (Ironically enough, the same year I was a freshman, she was a senior at Colorado State U.), and was getting ready to take her Master's. I give him girly advice and we get along splendidly.

Until I realize (albeit not on an entirely conscious level) that I'm falling for him. Hard. And that it would NOT work between us because of a million reasons, Anna foremost among them (not to mention the fact that he adamantly wouldn't date anyone not a Christian and I adamantly remained an atheist). So I start a fight because, well, I don't want to be falling for him. And, truth be told, he was flirting w/me WAAAY too much. (Especially now, looking back, and realizing that he was probably dating her at the time. He just neglected to mention that to me. No, not true, he flat out lied about it to me. He just said he was very interested in her, but that he couldn't get her to date him.) I felt like he was manipulating me into having feelings for him with no intention of it ever leading anywhere except into a heartache. And said so to him. (Lordy, I used to be blunt, didn't I?)

So, after resolving that, yes, he HAD been flirting with me, no he HADN'T intended to, and that friendship was all that would work between us, we continued becoming closer and closer. The whole time (a span of about...3 months) we pretty much acted like we were dating--without any kissing, holding of hands, or anything physical--and vehemently denied that there was any intention of us becoming anything else. And on this safe ground, he invited me to drive up to Oregon w/him to visit his family. No, not because he wanted me to meet his family but because it was a long drive, and he was looking for an excuse not to go, and he thought I'd refuse. Then he'd have a convenient reason not to go, just tell his family that he hadn't been able to get anyone to go with him, and it was too long a drive. Except, unexpectedly, I agreed to drive up there on Labor Day weekend with him. Why? I really don't know. I think, honestly, that as much as I was attracted to him, I just wanted to be near him.

So, we go up to Oregon, end up staying up till all hours of the night talking in the front room of his Sister's (and Mom's) house. (Brief side note, Anthony's mother moved in w/his sister after she had gotten her own house up in Oregon. She moved up from California to Oregon to be near her only grandchild.) He ends up having champagne one night (after already having informed me some weeks previously that champagne went straight to his head and that it took very little of it to get him drunk) and we end up on the couch w/his head in my lap and then he kept scooting up so that he was essentially leaning against me. (I can still remember when he kissed the inside of my elbow. It still gives me shivers.) And I was a basket case. Totally gone for him. But...I thought he was just drunk, that I happened to be the only available female (which I still occasionally feel like), and...so he made the comments he made and did the things he did. (I would like to say at this point that we hadn't even ever kissed yet, so, don't go getting any ideas about what went on in his sister's house!)

So, we're driving back to California, going to stop and see my family on the way back...and we start talking about...things. About what had happened the night before, about what might happen between us, about how I thought he was just drunk and figured we should forget about it, or figured I should just forget about it because it probably didn't mean anything to him.

"I think I'm falling in love with you." I've never been more astonished in my life. "But," he tells me, "I've made a promise to Anna, to wait for her to make up her mind for a year." Ah...I knew there was a catch. "You have to help me not to fall in love with you so that I can keep my promise to her." How the hell do I keep him from falling in love with me? Especially when...I'm already in love with him and I WANT him to love me back!

Long and short of it is...I end up admitting that I'm already in love with him and I don't know HOW to keep him from falling in love with me. That night, when we get back to his place, it's about 1 am, and we decide that it's too late for me to go home to my family at that time of the morning, so I should just spend the night at his place. (Does this sound like a less than brilliant idea to you??? Yeah, me too...at least now it does. Did I mention that I've become a Christian by this point? A totally amazing experience with God which will be yet another story sometime.) Yeah, well, one thing leads to another, and...we end up going a lot farther physically than I would expect to on what was...well, not even a first date. Even if we'd known each other for 3 months by then...No, we didn't have sex, that wasn't for another couple of months, but...just not what I had planned.

And the next day, we try to pretend everything is normal, sure the whole world can see on our faces our feelings for each other. I have only a week left before I go back to Colorado and I have been thinking seriously about moving out to California.

So...the week goes by, I'm deliriously happy...until he tells me that he's not sure about us vs. Anna...well, guess I should've seen that one coming, huh? But I didn't. Felt like a sucker punch to the stomach. So, I went back to Colorado with him asking me if I would wait for him while he waited for Anna. Although it was phrased much more romantically and I thought he was just asking me to wait for him. (Naive child!) When it finally came down to it, I decided to move out to California. So, I packed up and left everything and everyone that had ever been home and I moved 1400 miles. Whoa...pretty crazy thing for li'l ole me, bookworm, straight-A student, Mama Tessa, and general homebody to do.

I don't know what I was thinking. Probably, as much as I hate to admit it, that...being closer to him would make him choose me over her. And it did...but it was a choice of convenience, not a choice of...love? Preference? I don't know...

There is more, but I'm terribly afraid I'm going to lose this long-winded entry, so, I'm going to save and continue later.

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