No matter what I say about Joey, he will always be 10x more amazing.
Now to give a little back story, my life throughout high school was pretty ordinary for a 17 year old girl. I had the drama between my friends and I, as well as the drama with a couple guys. Coming into Senior year I had my breaking point when I was told that I was just luggage to this one guy. I knew right then that I could not wait to get out of this place and (to be honest) leave a lot of people behind (except Nica and Carly, xoxo). I started to attend school just to get my work done and leave. I began to hangout mostly with my church friends, which none of them went to Huntington Beach High, like me. Now this I loved, I loved the fact that they didn't know any of the people I talked about. I became best friends with this guy, like inseparable. We hung out almost every day and he was the person I told EVERYTHING to. This guy is also the reason I met my high school sweetheart. (Currently, we are not best friends anymore because of a past girlfriend that didn't want him to hangout with me, which caused a falling out of our friendship. It's fine. I'm fine.). Flash forward to the night I met Joey...
I was at home and incredibly bored (so I thought), when I decided to ask my best friend at the time, what he was doing. He responded by saying that he was out with a couple friends, but his brother isn't doing anything and that I should hit him up. Now, that wasn't a weird thing for me to do because I was good friends with his brother as well who was only a year older than us. I then went over to their house to hang out with his brother. I got a text a couple hours later from my best friend that he and a friend needed picked up so I went to pick them up and guess who his friend was... YES, it was in fact, Joey. We all went back to my friends house and just sat at the dining table the rest of the night, talking. I was immediately attracted to him, but definitely did not show it because I had the comment "You're just luggage" in the back of my head and didn't feel good enough for a guy. Little did I know that this guy would be the one to build back my confidence and show me God's unwavering love in the process.
A couple days later, I went to a bonfire at Joey's house with my best friend and that started the friendship. We continued to hangout (in group settings of course), which then resulted in Joey getting my number. We texted on and off for a while and (I kid you not) I asked him who he liked (HAHA so middle school!), but the answer was not in my favor when he told me he liked another girl. I was a little defeated and started texting him less and less over the next month. My church was doing a formal night, where we dress up fancy, eat dinner, play games, and go look at Christmas lights. This was in January of the year 2014 and my best friend and I decided to invite Joey and his brother to this shindig. To my surprise, he ends up coming and we had an amazing night with everybody. He tells me now, that that is the night he realized he liked me and not the other girl. He started texting me more and asking to hangout and would send me a bible verse every morning when I got to school. All of this happened while building up a friendship and a bit more than a friendship. On April 4th, 2014, Joey took me to the top of the world in Laguna and listed the reasons why he liked me and at the end of his list, he asked me to be his girlfriend.
Almost 4 and a half years later, on the eve of Joey's 23rd birthday and my 22nd birthday (yes, we have the same birthday), I get to look back on those years and reflect on the wonderful man that I still get to call, my love. Throughout the years, Joey has been overwhelmingly kind, generous, loving, strong, patient, and faithful towards me and I could not thank him enough. He has helped me through friendship fights and family fights and has always remained the calm, steady, and reasonable hand that reaches out towards me. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of times that Joey has spoken truth and wisdom into my life in times of need that have helped me incredibly. He continues to teach me the value of saving my money, how to fix my car, how to surf, skate, and snowboard, how to live a life that is not all about me, how to work for what I earn, how to not give up, how to be strong during hardships, how to love my body, how to be grateful for whatever God throws at me, and mostly how to look towards God in all situations and love Him with all my heart. Joey is an incredibly selfless man who chose to love a girl that did not believe in herself at the time, but that loved him with everything she had. I am so grateful for this man because of the woman he helped me become and the qualities of Jesus he has shown me every day.
With that being said, we are not perfect human beings and we are not a perfect couple, which is why we have had our fair share of disagreements. There have been times where I'm sure we have both been annoyed with the other, but before the day ends, we are hearing each other out and trying to communicate the best we can. I have learned that communication is the most important thing in a relationship and I have realized that almost all arguments are from the lack of communication in the relationship. Joey knows almost more about me than I know about myself and vice versa. That is the only way this relationship will survive, other than God being at the center of it. COMMUNICATION IS KEY. This relationship isn't working just by the twiddling of our thumbs. This relationship is working because we are both putting in an equal amount of effort into it. It is a choice that we are making on the daily to love each other and fight for each other.
I am in love with this man through the good and the bad. He is my high school sweetheart that has become my college sweetheart and I hope he will become my lifelong sweetheart.
Happy 23rd Birthday my love! Lets continue to choose each other!
Thank you for reading. Leave a comment or a question; I would really love to hear what you think.
Much Love,
Just Annalie
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