My mean love life....Part VII, transition from city girl to country girl

That May I decided I hated my job in the valley, I hated MCC, and I didn’t want to put up with the summer heat of Tempe, so...

I moved home where I always had a job waiting for me at the school. (sorry that was the only picture I could find on my computer of me living in the valley during that time...gotta love it though, danica and kayla and tamee...nice) A few months later, the best looking guy in the world moved up to Show Low to work. We were able to keep up our “playing” every few weeks, and he even offered me a part time job since my school job was part time (even though I was paid full time by the best boss in the world). We hung out A LOT. I still had phone calls from Mitch…we mended our horrible friendship, and e mails from Clint…still talked music with each other. And of coarse the best looking guy in the world and I were both still friends with Ted, so we saw them every once in a while, but usually didn't invite him to the dance clubs on the weeeknds since he was now a family man.

One day we decided to try out for a dating show that had couples date other people and say what they liked about the "other people' more than their boyfriend/girlfriend. Since we weren't really a couple, I figured it'd be fine to totally rip on each other like that on national TV. We took these pictures, trying to look like an offical couple because you had to turn in 3 pictures with your application.
A bunch of us went to Clear Creek to jump off of cliffs one day. HE was there, with his brother and a few other friends. I decided to be the tough girl that was raised by these cliffs and jump off of the highest cliff, which was about 70’. It killed! But I came out of the water with a confident smile. We had a lot of fun that day. So much that I wrote this in my journal, “he’s the best. I don’t want to be the one he marries, but I’m going to be sad & jealous when he does.” So I figured there would be nothing there, it’s just another fling. But we went on with the summer, hanging out, attending singles activities and flirting with whoever was lame enough to show up. I was living under the strict hand of Paul Hatch at the time. Back to my HS rules. There were nights we’d hang out so late that I’d just want to stay the night up at his house in Show Low. I realized that maybe I did like this guy, when I found myself fighting with my dad (who I NEVER fight with) about spending more time with him. I ignored it though, because he was still dating other girls on the side too. We had so much fun working together though. WE went to slide rock in Sedona…in our skivvies during tourist season, we made a tape for him to try out for the first season of Survivor (which he should have made). We were best friends.

Then I realized how jealous I would get of his other girls, how I would miss him when we missed a day of working together, and how badly it was killing me NOT to tell him how I really felt. I’d never had to do this before. Things just always happened, but we had be

en kissing and flirting for so many years that I figured he was just using me (which I was OK with 100%) and he figured the same thing, but I either needed to tell him or stop hanging out with him. And the easiest way for me to get out of that one was a mission.