Keep Your Roots Planted But Let Your Branches Grow (original) (raw)

..but just a brief synopsis of my trip to see Zach in Illinois, my first week since early 2005 of not being single...pictures on facebook...

Tuesday, Oct 20, 2009:
I get home from my internship, and my best friend Katie comes to my apartment to pick me up. I load my luggage into her car and we go to dinner then back to her house for the night. I took some benadryl before dinner to help me fall asleep early since we'd need to wake up at 2:45am to get me to the airport in time!! (I wanted plenty of time to primp, after all!) I laid in bed at 7pm, and Katie was gabbing at me as I was passing out (I apparently don't have much resistence to benadryl as I never use it.)

Wednesday, Oct 21, 2009:
Katie and I got up way earlier than any human being ever should, and she drove me to the airport. I made her stick around with me until the last second as I was getting in the security line. I was already so nervous!! She hugged me goodbye, and I got in the line and didn't look back. Once I got through security things seemed to move pretty quickly, and before I knew it, I was on a plane headed for Denver. I got to Denver and had a text message from my dad. "Are you nervous?" AHHH thanks Dad! I think the word "nervous" makes me more nervous!! I said "A little!" he said "Are you shaking?" I ignored him. I began to put on some makeup (I wanted it to be more fresh than 3am-applied, so I didn't do any makeup that morning), and a little kid at the airport entertained me. My plane was half an hour late.

I had warned Zach that I wanted a little bit of "primp" time at the Chicago Midway airport before coming out to meet him, and he begrudgingly agreed. I went into a bathroom and slipped on a headband and re-applied eyeliner and lip gloss and once I realized that I was pretty fresh out of things to do to freshen up, I did what any sensible girl would do...I called my best friend. "Are you on lunch break??" I asked frantically. "Yeah, what's up?" "I'm here." "You are?? How was the first meeting?" "Um, no. I'm in Illinois, but I'm still in the bathroom." "WHAT?" "I can't do it." "You have to!! Come on Megs, get out there, you'll be fine!" So I made my way past the security gate and didn't see him anywhere...so I started texting him...he was down by baggage claim. *deep breath* I walked to baggage claim...looked by the first turnstile...he wasn't there...looked around...didn't see him. Texted him. "Where are you?" "I said I was by baggage claim." "I am too, where by baggage claim?" "Down at the end, by the wall." I looked up and saw him. He was looking at his phone. I ran a few steps closer. "HEY!" I called out, my heart in my throat. "Are you gonna keep looking at your phone or are you gonna say hi to me??" He looked up and smiled. There was a 3.5 (or so) foot gate between us. I reached up for a hug. Genuine, since we HAD been talking for nearly 10 months at this point, but still (for me!) nerve wracking!! Too nervous to stand around and be still, I looked up at him and said "Now how do I get out of here?" He pointed me toward a gate and I walked around and he walked around to meet me. Now, standing face to face with no gate in between, i said "How bout a real hug?" and had one without interference from the fence. Then he led me out to where his car was parked, basically out one door. We walked to the back of his car and he helped me throw my luggage in his trunk. Being me, generally exciteable and hard to slow down when I'm nervous, I was ready to hop in the car, but before I could make a move, Zach looked into my eyes, grabbed my waist, and just looked at me with a look that gave me shivers...almost hard for this girl to maintain eye contact! Then he slowly wrapped his arms around me, and we stood there embracing, and then the first kiss...ahhh I feel like I made it a little awkward by being so nervous!!

We got in his car and began driving to where we were staying for the night, outside of Chicago just a little ways, near where one of his good friends (Ashley) lives. It was a little difficult trying to get out of Chicago, but I didn't mind...this was the first time we got a chance to just be with each other in person, after all! I felt no need to rush. Most of that car ride was filled with good-natured ribbing...nervous energy, I think! There was one point where he was giving me crap about something, and I looked over at him, and just felt this flood of giddiness, so I leaned over and gave him a kiss on his shoulder. "Heyyyyy...." he said, protesting the fact that I had temporarily disabled his defenses, "I wasn't ready for that, you can't do that over the phone!!" Anyway, we met up with his best friends from grad school (Natasha and Ashley) and had dinner and saw "Where the Wild Things Are." One thing that sticks out to me here is that we were headed into the theater, Ashley, then Natasha, then me, then Zach, and as Ashley and Natasha turned a corner, I felt Zach grab me by the waist and pull me back for a minute. I turned and looked at him and he said "Hey...come here..." and gave me a quick kiss. So cute and sweet!! I probably blushed a little, and my heart sure raced a little. The nervous ribbing in the car, then hanging out with his friends...we hadn't had a lot of time to just be sweet so I know that was the intention there, and well...it was sweet enough that it's burned in my memory a month later!!

The movie was cute, but the night ended not too long after that.

Thursday, October 22, 2009:
Jet lagged, I awoke quite a bit after Zach did; he's an early riser anyway. Once he saw that I had woken up a little, he wouldn't quit picking on me (mainly tickling me). He actually took pictures of me sleeping! Finally, he must have tired of waiting for me to wake up, so before I knew what to do with myself, he literally picked me up out from underneath my comfy covers, and acted like he was going to throw me out the window!! I groaned and protested and finally agreed to get ready for the day.

We hit the road for Peoria, his hometown. He made me fill his car with gas, since we are not allowed to in Oregon (it's all full service) and he likes to pretend I'm snobby, so he got pictures of me (available on facebook if you want to witness firsthand how funny he thinks he is) filling the tank.

He drove me through Peoria a little, showing me different sights like the river, the downtown area, and the hospital where his mom works. Then we went to a mall.

We walked into a sports store, and I began a little wager. Zach has taken an interest in the Beavers for me, but likes to pretend he's a *uck sometimes, so I said "Ok, for every Beavers thing we see, I get a point. For every *ucks thing we see, you get a point." He agreed to this and I was sure we wouldn't see any memorabilia from either team.

We came to a wall of frosted mugs. There we saw one mug with a big ugly green "O" on it, and I groaned, apparently a little too loudly. "Really? They have u of o stuff way out here?" The guy behind the counter heard me, and said "You may want to come take a look at this lanyard!" and sure enough, they also had an ugly green and yellow lanyard. "Don't you have anything from the REAL college team in Oregon?" I protested. The guy laughed and pointed to a rack with some athletic shorts. They had university of whoregon shorts in three different styles. Uncle Phil probably designed them all himself. I groaned and made Zach leave, annoyed that he had won.

After walking around the mall, checking into the hotel, and relaxing for a bit, we had dinner and then...Zach took me to a play.

This play was at a theater where Zach used to perform, so I was excited to see something there. The play was called "The Goat...or Who Is Sylvia?" Zach decided that since I grew up on 20 acres, I am therefore a "hick" who needed to be "cultured."

Neither one of us had heard of this play or knew what it was about. It turned out to be quite interesting. The protagonist cheated on his wife, and the plot was about unveiling the nature and subject of this affair. Long story short, it was a goat. As we left, I thanked him for inflicting his culture on me.

Friday, October 23, 2009
Friday, Zach took me to meet his grandmother. Now, don't get me wrong, I knew my guy was a complete sweetheart, but while I was there, his grandma showed me a framed picture of her with Zach as a very little boy, and there was also something Zach had written her that was INCREDIBLY sweet. It was very cute that his grandma was showing him off :). I tried to convince myself I wasn't, but I was pretty nervous to meet is grandmother, but she was so incredibly sweet. It put me a little more at ease about meeting his parents that evening!!

After meeting Zach's grandma, we got some lunch, and Zach took me on a drive around town to see the local college and a park, and then he took me to where he used to play ice hockey so we could go ice skating. I am phenomenally bad at ice skating, but Zach wanted to take me and he even dreamed up an outfit he wanted me to wear...which I did...which I orignially felt silly about, but I got lots of compliments on it on facebook :). The rink was mostly dead since it was 1pm on a Friday, but there were a couple little boys out there ice skating. They were following us around, wanting to talk about college sports, mostly following Zach around since I just kept making veeeeery slow circles around the rink. Finally, at one point, Zach and I were standing together, and one of the kids came over and asked us how old we thought he was. Zach guessed 13 and I guessed 11. I was right. Zach asked him how old he thought we were. He hemmed and hawed for awhile, and I said, "Well, which one of us do you think is older?" he looked at me for a moment and said "Well...you look older..." to which Zach nearly ended up on the floor in a fit of laughter. Then he guessed Zach was 25. More laughter. Apparently I look older than my age.

After ice skating, Zach took me to this tower where we could see the whole city. With the fall colors, it was really pretty. It was raining and very windy, and even more so at the top of the tower. Zach was a little uneasy, but I love being up high where I can see so much, exposed to the elements. It's exciting. I think that's also where my favorite picture of the trip was taken :) It makes me all gooey inside. Sorry for the PDA :)

After we left, Zach had a headache, so I convinced him to stop at a Walgreen's to let me get him a travel-size portion of Tylenol. He finally agreed, so I went in and I scoured Walgreen's looking for a small enough bottle of Tylenol; must've taken me a good 10 minutes. When I finally checked out, I tried to walk out the door to my right, but it was an automatic door and it wouldn't open! It was broken. I must've looked shocked/frustrated at being locked in the store, 'cause Zach was parked right outside the door, and saw me and started laughing.

Later that evening, we went to go meet Zach's parents. We met them for dinner. I told myself, and had myself convinced, that I wasn't going to be nervous going into it. Zach had me pretty much assured that his mom was going to like me regardless. As it got closer, I got really nervous about meeting his dad. Out of all 4 parents involved in this, his dad is the only one that had any major reservations about any of this. He doesn't use the internet very much and didn't understand facebook or even the fact that Zach had ever seen a picture of me!! So we were driving up to the restaurant, and Zach kept saying "Nervous yet? Nervous yet? Thump thump! Thump thump!" If looks could kill, I would have had a corpse at the wheel of the car i was in. So it's probably a good thing looks can't kill.

Dinner went very well :). I liked both of his parents very much. I encouraged his mom to ask me questions, even though Zach told her not to. And I talked enough about sports that I think I won his dad over :). And I accidentally...pretty much involuntarily...scolded him in front of his parents, which I was mortified about, but he was endlessly amused.

Saturday, October 20, 2009
Saturday morning, we got up early enough to go watch some of his dad's volleyball tournament (his dad coaches high school volleyball). I happen to actually really like volleyball, so it was really fun for me to go watch. The first match didn't go great, and they lost because some of the star players were suspended, but were let back in for the second match and they won.

Then Zach and I went for a walk, which was fun. He had found this park ahead of time that he'd never been to, so we followed the path around. We played a game where I tried to push him off the path. I think I did once, when he let me. It was beautiful and sunny but cold.

Then we went to his parents' house for awhile, trying to figure out how we were going to watch the Beavers game. It was on national television since we were playing USC, but regionally. We found it on pay-per-view, after Zach did a LOT of research tracking it down. And his parents were kind and generous enough to let us watch it at their house, even though it went kind of late. Before the game, Zach took me to get pizza at his favorite local place...I walked in ALL decked out in Oregon State gear, I probably looked kinda funny and felt a little self conscious, but nobody seemed to even notice. Zach's dad even watched some of it, and commented "wow, OSU is a pretty good team...are those Rodgers guys brothers?" We lost that game but it was very close and our offense put on a big show! (UGH...although that game and Oregon, it killed me...our lack of ability to convert in the red zone. GRRRR!)

Sunday, October 21, 2009
The next morning, we went to mass at a church Zach had never been to before, St. Patrick's in Washington, which is a suburb of Peoria. I liked it but Zach found it a little crowded :). Then we met his aunt, who I got a HUGE kick out of. She was lots of fun and much younger than her chronological age. She took some "church clothes but senior prom poses" pictures of us in her back yard, which was kinda fun.

Then we went to Zach's parents house. His dad wanted to tell me all about seeing duck fans in church. (He had originally thought they were Packer's fans, but then saw the O. I groaned.) Later, as his parent were leaving, his dad came in and gave me a sweatshirt from the school he coaches at (which is the same high school Zach went to and was the starting QB for, so I naturally loved it!). His mom even gave me a hug when they left. I think I made a good impression...I hope!!

My flight didn't leave until 9 (but I got into Portland at 11...funny how that works!), but we left for Chicago around 2 to be on the safe side. We got some coffee. We stopped at a rest stop and played on the playground and got some pictures. We got to the airport SUPER early because there was no traffic, and we ended up sitting at a table there for about two hours. For probably the last 40 minutes, it reallly really hit me that I was leaving, and Ms. Ice Queen Vandecoevering was having a lot of trouble not crying. About 20 minutes before we had to part ways, I thought I was going to lose it so I excused myself to the bathroom to take a deep breath and regain my composure. That bought me about 5 minutes. We were in the middle of talking about something, when I folded my arms on the table and then buried my head in them. "Honey, what's wrong?" Zach said, as I started sobbing. Then he realized. I was sad I was leaving!! He grabbed my hand and invited me to come sit in his lap so I did for a minute, then I felt myself start to regain my composure so I sat back down in my own chair, and we started talking again...and I immediately started crying again. He laughed at me gently. After a few minutes, it was time for me to head upstairs to go through security. We must have hugged and kissed and said good bye 5 times before I got on the escalator. I think I made him promise twice that we would talk the next night, and he made me promise that I'd text him once I was home safe that night. I took a big breath, and straightened up as I walked away from him, and onto the escalator. I was about halfway up when I heard "Megan!" and looked down, and he was standing there. "I love you.." he mouthed to me. I smiled and mouthed "I love you too" back to him, and tried not to start crying all over again.

And now he's coming to see me in January. And just started a job on 12/7 so he can save up to move out here. Ummm...my life is pretty much amazing.