Memphis Or Bust

Fast forward to May 2006. Ethan and I have been dating for 3 years. He is 18 and I am 16. Ethan's parents kicked him out of their house in April so he has been living with me and my family for a month. We are working together at Mama's cafeteria. Neither of us are in high school, he graduated when he was 16 and I dropped out when I was 15.

I was born in Texas, but I spent the first 9 1/2 years of my life living in Memphis, Tennessee, so for our 3 year anniversary, Ethan wanted to do something really special. He decided that he wanted to see the other place I called home. He talked to my parents about it and finally they agreed. We were going to take a road trip together {our first time going anywhere for that long by ourselves} to Memphis. I was so incredibly excited!

I spent three days figuring out all the places from my childhood that I wanted to take Ethan to. Of course there were the houses I used to live in, the church that was a MAJOR part of our lives {so much so that we haven't been to one yet that has compared}, and my favorite places to go. I mapped out the best places to eat from my memory, and of course we had to go see the friends that became family when we lived in TN.

When we finally left I couldn't contain my happiness. I was so excited to get on the road, not only because I was going back to my childhood, but because I was having this awesome experience with the person who meant the most to me.

At the time, Ethan had a 1988 Honda Civic named Blue that was really falling apart. Looking back on it now, we were really lucky the car made it to Memphis and back. Driving 10 1/2 hours in the humid summer with no A/C and nothing but the radio, was an adventure in itself. I remember being unbearably hot and getting motion sickness from having the wind blowing in my face constantly.

We spent four amazing days driving around Memphis while I showed off my city. I took Ethan to the Peabody Hotel to watch the Peabody duck march, to the Memphis Zoo {my favorite zoo I've been to so far} which was a favorite field trip spot when I was in school, to the park I went to all the time when I was little. I took him to the first neighborhood I lived in, which was in the ghetto. Literally. We ate at all my favorite restaurants; Corky's BBQ {there is nothing that compares to Memphis BBQ}, Perkins, Dixie Cafe, Backyard Burgers, Johnny Rockets...We also got to see my favorite Memphis family, the Hamiltons. Bobbie Hamilton and my Mama were best friends back in the day. I have so many fond memories because of that family. Whenever I think of Memphis they are the first people that come to mind. Our families literally did everything together. We went to bible studies together, played at each other's houses, went to the library...they really helped my mom out when my dad split to. We stayed with them our last night in Memphis and it was so nice to see Ashley, Nicole, and Brittany - who I hadn't seen in years, and sadly who I haven't seen since. I told Ashley that night that I was going to marry Ethan. I had my heart set, and I knew that it would happen eventually.

On the way back to Texas Ethan began to talk about the thought of us getting married. We discussed things that we wanted in our lives, where we wanted to be in 10 years, and how we planned on getting there. He told me that he could see himself marrying me, and that the weekend had been a test to see if we could conceivably even be able to live together on our own. If we could get along, or if we would drive each other crazy. Clearly we passed the test, although looking back on it we really had no idea at all what marriage would be like. We thought we knew what love was. We thought we could handle anything without breaking a sweat. We thought marriage would be a piece of cake.

We had no idea what we were talking about. :-)