I get asked that ALL of the time. Every time I meet someone new. Every job interview. Every time I talk to someone I have not talked to in a long ass time. Why did you move UP THERE? It usually comes with this look of shock or horror on their face, like I just moved into the middle of Sahara, or up to the North Pole (may as well have), or to a far off jungle somewhere. Well, I am going to tell you why. For a boy. Quit my job, lost my marbles and moved everything I owned three hours north of Green Bay, Wisconsin - where I lived - to a little town called Ishpeming...all for a boy.
Ishpe-What?? That is what I said when he told me he lived there and was never leaving. Sigh. This was when the voices in my head, my head and heart pulled out their light sabers and started fighting with each other. But you love him. But you have no job up there and you know no one. But who cares you love him. Guess who won? That girl in pink...in lace...the emotional, romantic one that thinks with her heart? That girl won. It didn't take long.
So, the story goes like this. As a freshman in high school, I met a boy. A boy in my English class who I had a HUGE crush on. I never told him. We became good friends. We would go for walks and talk a lot. We hung out with different crowds. The crowd I hung out with tended to be the smoking, drinking, not going to school type and I got into some trouble here and there. This boy, Anthony, he never judged me. He never looked down on me for the stupid mistakes I made. Ok maybe when I dated a certain loser, he may have a little.....we don't talk about that anymore. I never asked Tony out, I was deathly afraid he would say no. I didn't know he liked me too. He never told me and maybe I was just too dumb to see the signs. I wish I could remember why....why I never asked him. I never would have just randomly chose this loser guy over TOny back then unless there was a reason...but I have no clue, I don't remember. Anyhow, my folks were in the middle of a custody battle and I was sent overseas to live with my father and evil stepmother. My dad was in the military. My brother and I. It was hell. Tony and I wrote to each other here and there. After three years, I came back. Somehow, Tony and I got together and started dating. We had a whirlwind summer romance. We were kind of inseparable, we went everywhere together, we could not keep our hands off each other. We were 16-17 years old and I was in love. He had these eyes that were either bright blue and just WOW or they were a dark stormy blue gray and ...oh my....and he could look right through me. He could read me like a book then and he still can today. Those eyes...no one has ever had those eyes....he had this swagger when he walked, well, he still has it. He was just....oh hell...he was mine. He was my everything as a young girl. I told myself that I was going to be with him for a long long time. Think of 'The Notebook' here...ya, it was like that. Well, as teenage love goes, that did not happen. My dad got stationed down in southern Illinois and Tony stayed up in Wisconsin. We were about 8 hours apart. He came to visit once. We lost touch again. After graduation, I moved back to Berlin, WI. Life moved forward. I went to his house once, but was too afraid to knock on the door. I met someone, had a daughter. Tony came to visit again. Emotions and feelings got all stirred up. And he left.
That was 24 years ago. Last June....June 7 to be exact, I received a notification on Facebook saying he had sent me a friend request. My jaw hit the floor. I had searched for him here and there. I had hoped he would resurface, just so I knew he was ok, so I knew he was alive and living and ok. I thought about him. And here he was. I accepted his request. I was like a damn school girl all over again. It was really him. My unicorn. (For those simple minded folks - unicorns are a fantasy creature in a little girls head and do not exist except in their dreams...he was my unicorn...but he was real).I had been married twice and was on my second divorce. He had been married for 17 years and was just getting into his divorce. We had a lot of hurt and pain to share with each other. There were a lot of late night phone calls and texting and Facebook conversations. The emotions were awake. They were loud and screaming. They told me to drive north and go see him. So I did. To this 'Ishpeming' place. I had never heard of it. I did not know a THING about the Upper Peninsula except that is where Yoopers lived, LOL. I didn't know anything about the land, the people, the food, the lake, the goddamn giant bugs, or anything else. I just knew that was where HE lived. And I was bound and determined to go see him, come hell or high water. So I drove. Three hours north. The whole drive I was telling myself ' You are crazy, turn the fuck around, what are you doing' while the girl in pink up in my head was saying 'Oh helllll no don't you dare, you keep on driving'.....so I drove.
I pulled up in front of his house. I think I had smoked half a pack of smokes on the way up at least. I pulled up. I turned the car off. There he was. Sitting on his front porch. Oh hell. No turning back now. He got up off of his chair on his porch and started walking my direction. I had actually made myself get out of the car and cross the street. He still had that swagger. Oh holy hell. Oh good, he had sunglasses on, whew. We met each other on the sidewalk and gave each other a hug. He whispered that I still had my sunglasses on and I whispered back so do you. So we both took them off. And that was that. Those eyes. There he was. It was HIM. The same him. A little older, a little more broken down from a hard life of shit, and I am sure mine were too, but he was there. I gave him a bigger, tighter hug. I didn't want to let go. My unicorn. He was real. My heart was screaming so hard and so loud it hurt.
After that visit, I drove up as much as I could. Every other weekend, when I didn't have my son and on my days off. We got to know each other all over again. It was on his front porch - the front porch where we talked, where we smoked....it was on that porch that I realized I was in love with him again. And it scared the living hell out of me. But it was so exciting at the same time. I don't remember the exact moment I decided it, but I was in Green Bay. I sent him a text. I told him I was moving to Ishpeming. He was scared. He was excited. He had admitted he had fallen in love with me on the back porch. LOL. Damn porches. I miss them.
The next few months were a blur of job hunting, house hunting and A LOT of driving. I had brought my son up to meet him and his son. They got along great, thank God. He met my daughter over Christmas. Everything was going good. So I quit my job. Just like that. I had no where to live up here and no job to go to. I quit my job, moved in with my best friend for a couple of months and I moved to Ishpeming, Michigan. Just past the end of the earth. And life is happy. Coming soon....the Lake, the Yooper bugs...the food, the scenery, the Yooper Trap...I will tell you about it all. For now, you get my WHY. Why a crazy girl gives up her life as she knows it, a good job, friends....to move to a faraway cold land.....lol...for a boy. I tell him all of the time that I love him to the ends of the earth, and then to Ishpeming. And I do. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for that man. Sometimes I realize how much I love him and it makes me emotional. He is my woogy. xoxox
So there you have it. That's why I moved.
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