Jenni's version...Part III.

The saga continues...(I told you it was long!)

So the very last time I saw Mike while still in high school was when my volleyball team decided to t-pee his house. My dear friend (who shall remain nameless because I'm not sure she's all that proud of it!) called him and arranged for him to meet me in his backyard while the rest of my volleyball team wrecked havoc on his front yard. My volleyball coach had no idea...I thought anyway. Looking back I'm sure she wasn't that stupid and figured it out pretty quickly. It was the last time I saw him, last time I kissed him and I bawled my eyes out as we said goodbye. Mike and Kathy were sweet enough to allow my friends to t-pee their backyard and even clean it up themselves afterward. Too funny. I'm sure our children will be putting us into those situations as well. I'm bummed because I actually found pictures of his t-pee'd house that night and scanned them into my computer but for some reason they won't upload. So you'll just have to imagine it until I can figure out how to be smarter than the computer.

So the years pass. Occasionally I would write in my journal about Mike. He dated other people, I dated other people but still always had him in my heart and in my thoughts. He moved schools after that summer, which was a good thing since my parents threatened to send me to boarding school if I ever saw him again. Not even kidding, they even handed me the brochure. Now they say they wouldn't have sent me, they were just trying to scare me. Crap, it worked!

So fast forward to my first year of college...so, 3 years later. I got a phone call from a friend back home (I was in Kansas, at Tabor College). She told me that she heard through the grapevine that Mike got married to a girl we went to high school. I even wrote in my journal about it and said something like, "Well, I guess now I can move on. He's married. GET OVER HIM!" See, I held this belief in what he and I had talked about a lot, that he would come find me when I was 18 and we could be together. I dated a few other guys since Mike, but no one serious. Literally I was passing time until I was 18 (I went to college a year early, so was still 17 my first year). I remember that phone call though and remember that journal entry. Knowing he had moved on freed my heart to also move on, as much as I could. I remember praying for him then...hoping and wanting him to be happy and living a life he deserved, the very best. It was hard to think of him marrying someone else, that's not how our story was supposed to end! Our plans were supposed to happen, it should have been us getting married! In some ways I was heartbroken all over again, in some ways I was angry. Angry that my parents did all of that, angry that we were ripped apart like we were. Angry that life and love wasn't fair, angry that he didn't wait for me, and angry that he wasn't mine. Not even kidding you, it was merely weeks later that I met Mike Unrau. And I'm glad that I was able to let go of Mike Roe so that I could love Mike Unrau so freely.

Fast forward to fall of 1999. Mike and I had been married for about 6 weeks when we decided to go see a friend play volleyball at C.S.C.S. (the school Mike Roe and I had gone to). Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to run into Mike Roe there! Sure enough, there he sat with his wife at the time. Come to find out, it was the only game he had gone to as well during all those years. I don't remember much of the game and I'm sure Mike Unrau was wondering what the heck my problem was. I think I told him it was Mike sitting down there, but I don't remember for sure. See, every guy I dated knew about Mike Roe. They knew how much I had loved him and how much my heart had been broken through the whole process. My first boyfriend after Mike Roe couldn't even buy me roses for a year because Mike used to bring me a rose every time he picked me up! Pathetic, I know. Anyway, I sat up on the top of the bleachers staring down at Mike's head the whole game. I was shaking and doing my best to pretend to be calm and unaffected. At one point I had gone to the bathroom and literally walked right beside him on my way back up the bleachers. But I was pretty sure he didn't even see me. Or worse yet, didn't remember me! Yikes! I was so terrified! Needless to say it shook me up quite a bit. Here I was just newly married and totally in love with my husband, yet shaken up at seeing my old flame. I felt guilty for how much it shook me up too. This was my journal entry from that night:

"Mike was there with ******. When I saw him I literally couldn't breathe. I sat up behind him and trembled the whole game, oblivious to anything but my thoughts and memories and of course the visible image of him. I walked by him a couple of times but didn't think he saw me. It was an emotional night, yet again it all came flooding back. I felt so, so guilty, here I was a happy newlywed, yet seeing him shook me up so badly."

Fast forward to October 2002. I got an email from my older sister, Laura, saying "You will never believe who found me on Classmates." Sure enough, it was Mike Roe. She didn't know what to do, said he wanted to get a hold of me. So I gave her permission to send him my email address. Michael was about 2 months old and I was extremely happily married. In fact, this was the best time of Mike and I's marriage. But I was dying of curiosity to know what this boy that i had loved wanted to say to me! And because I am the sentimental fool, I, of course, saved his emails! Here it is:

"Jenni,
I cannot believe I have finally found you. I have been looking for you for years. Three to be exact. The last time I saw you, you were at a CSCS volleyball game, and I saw you sitting in the stands. I was with ****** (exwife :), do you remember? Well, ****** and I were divorced in Jan. of 2000. I have been looking for you ever since. I went back in the Army in 2000, and am almost done with it. I am getting out in Feb of '03. I haven't decided where I am going to go yet, but I will soon. Anyway, how are you? Are you married? I figured that the first person that came along and realized how special and wonderful you were, just wouldn't let you go. I wish I never would have, but we kinda had some weird circumstances. I would like to know about you, please write and tell me everything. I never forgot what I told you that last time we saw each other...when you "T-pee'd my house". And I still mean it. I have never forgotten you. I hope to hear from you soon. I have been waiting for a letter from you for 3 years after all. I will be waiting and watching everyday.

With all my love,
Mike Roe"

WHOA!! What?! I cannot even adequately express how this email made me feel. I was shocked! This was a chapter in my life I had closed off, it had ended when he got married! And I was very happily married. So I told him that. I emailed him back and told him I was happier than I had ever been, bragged and went on and on about my husband (ask him, he'll tell you how much he gagged!), told him all about my sweet newborn baby boy and pretty much wished him well. I did tell him how much I loved him back then and that he would always hold a special place in my heart, but that I was happy and 100% committed to my husband. I wish I would have saved my emails, but I didn't. This is the one I got back in reply.

"Well, am so glad to hear from you. I have been looking for you forever, and it turns out that my worst fear has come true. It sounds like you are happy though, and that lifts my heart. I just wish I could have been the one to give that to you. I actually sat and looked at your email for like 5 minutes before I opened and read it. I had all kinds of butterflies. Is is like looking for something for a lifetime, and then finally just all of a sudden finding it. You were a part of a puzzle that I couldn't finish (hmmm...strangely similar to my journal entry!), and now, married or not, I am complete. I am not trying to imply anything, I just wanted you to know how much of an impact you had on me, after we never saw each other again. I am still so in love with you. I am still tingly on the fact that I am writing you. I am just so happy to get to talk to you at all. My hands are shaking as I'm writing, so please excuse the mess-ups. I will talk to you soon.
Love Always,
Mike Roe"

My next email to him was filling in the years and gaps since we had last seen each other. And I know you are wondering and yes, Mike Unrau knew I was emailing Mike Roe! He told me it was my choice, that if I felt I needed to clear some of the past up and get closure than he would support that. So Mike Roe and I filled each other in on the years and then he sent this:

"I want you to know. I have been looking for you since '99 when she and I broke up, I was well aware that if I ever found you, you might be married, so I was prepared for that. I am happy that you are so happy. I will never do or say anything to change that. Tell Mike that he is a lucky man. I just want to be your friend if that is possible. I want to meet him, and make you a part of my life. I lost you once, I will never let you out of contact again. You are so special to me. You, you were the only one I ever truly loved. I was too young to get married (they got divorced for similar reasons as Mike and I did, except she was the one "at fault"). I haven't dated much, but I am sure I will find someone. I am happy as I can be, but I am much happier, knowing you are happy. I will always love you, and am willing to be your friend to be near you. God has given me the strength to deal with this a long time ago."

I wrote him back and pretty much told him it was too hard for me to be in contact, that I loved my husband and it tore me up to talk about the past. Then I got this email...

"This is just a little harder to swallow than I thought. I am hurting but don't want to show it to you. I don't want to make things hard for you at all. I am sorry. We move out tomorrow (he was in the Army and this was right before the U.S. moved into Iraq.). We will be on the homefront of Kuwait for a while. Remember you will always be in my heart. Thinking of you always.

Love,
Mike"


And that was the last I heard from him. I was upset because I feared he had gone to Iraq and gotten killed, but I was also relieved because I knew I could not devote my heart 100% to my husband if I had any kind of contact with Mike Roe. Years passed and occasionally I would look up the list of fallen soldiers online to see if I saw his name. I never did and I always wondered what happened to him. I did, however, live fully in the present with my husband. I don't want anyone to mistake that. I was glad that Mike Roe and I were able to talk about the past and have more of a sense of closure, because that's something that kind of always haunted me. But like I said, I was relieved we weren't in contact anymore because I did love my husband and was determined to remain loyal to him, not just physically but emotionally.

Fast forward to July of 2004. This is a journal entry that I entered in the very back of my "Mike Roe Journal" from when I was 15.

"Again, here I am years later...though I've kept journaling over the years, the "end" of the Mike Roe story hasn't ever come yet. I wrestle with whether or not to write exactly what's on my heart, only because my husband deserves my whole heart and loyalty. Yet as I go back and read this journal I know there is more I need to record. So why not do it here and now, it seems there was some reason why I left the rest of this journal blank. Who knows, maybe someday a granddaughter will come across this and enjoy what I think is an incredible love story! I think I will forever be a romantic, hoping and dreaming of a world where you have a perfect, passionate, and flawless love and it all becomes a "happily ever after". Oh for a world that doesn't have heartache and pain, that is uncomplicated and simple. Yet I know if it weren't for the complicated heartache and pain, I wouldn't be who I am today. Obviously life moved on after Mike Roe. I am so grateful I wrote down all those feelings of love and pain. I'm glad they were here for me to come back to...in a way to remember the intensity of them. No feelings ever came close to what I felt towards Mike. Up until I met my husband, Mike, I always compared every guy to Mike Roe. No one ever came close to him, I never felt that intense and burning love that consumed all of me. Then along came Mike Unrau (yikes, this is tough to relive) and he was an immediate and overwhelming love and i knew I would marry him. He was the 2nd love of my life and though I've never doubted my live for him is genuine, it's not the same love I had for Mike Roe. Which of course it's not the same, they are two very different people. In a way time did heal those wounds from Mike. Time has a way of lessening the intensity of emotions and that's how it heals. In life you are always forced to move on, to continue your journey. Yet that doesn't always mean you've really "moved on" and healed, sometimes it means you've forced yourself to bury and ignore what's in your heart of hearts. Life didn't allow me to stay in the comfort and safety of our love and time made me believe that maybe I made all those emotions up. Maybe I allowed all my romantic hopes and dreams to come up with this make believe love. Life only showed me that the love Mike Roe and I had doesn't exist. People don't fall in love like that at 15 years old and they don't love each other passionately and desperately at first sight. And they don't so blindly and honestly love someone like that without knowing them very well. But life can be very unfair, because it was wrong about our love. All those things were true about us. I still can't understand how Mike and I had such a short time together yet my heart and soul KNEW him and loved him beyond anything I can fathom. And I can say all of this 10 years later, when I'm not blinded by that fresh love and childish drama. I could write an entire journal about my love for my hubby Mike, in fact i already have! But I'm only writing in here to get this most recent stuff out so I can truly put this story to rest. So I fell in love with Mike Unrau and we married almost 5 years ago. We've had hard times for sure, but I've never doubted our marriage or my love for him. I can look back now because I am married to who I believe was God's will for me to marry. But I still don't know why I had to go through all of that with Mike Roe. It's almost 10 years later and I still don't know. I don't regret any of those decisions I made to be with Mike Roe. Even though I went through hell for so long afterward I know it was worth it. There's almost no greater feeling and memories than that of a first love and I'm still SO grateful Mike was mine. To this day though I've never understood how I could love two men so deeply at the same time. I've always said that some aspects of love are a choice. Love will bring you to marriage, but sometimes during trials and irritating moments you have to choose to love enough to get beyond that. I've learned a healthy and happy marriage requires that choice sometimes and it's not a bad thing, it's a reality. But in the last couple of years, especially since October 2002, I've also realized that in order to remain faithful to Mike in all areas, I also have to choose to NOT allow my love for Mike Roe to surface and be on my mind and heart. And that's partly why I'm writing all of this, to sort out my heart and mind, to get it all out and be able to let it go again. It's my responsibility to make sure I am giving Mike all that I have to give."
And I did. It would have been easy to think about this old love, to dream up what could have been, to think of the "what if". But I wanted to and was determined to be loyal in all ways to my husband. And I did...I put the story of Mike Roe behind me and lived happily and wholly in my marriage to Mike Unrau.

Fast forward again to October 30, 2004. I was 6 months pregnant with Riley and Michael was just barely 2 years old. I took him to the mall one afternoon to kill time, Mike was working, as always. I took Michael to the pet store because we always loved to go see the puppies and kitties at Pet City. I picked him up and we were both looking at the little kittens. All of the sudden this guy walks past me and as he is passing me says, "They're cute, aren't they?". I barely turned and said, "Yeah" or something to that affect when I realized it was Mike Roe! WHAT?! Why is it always out of nowhere?!?! Without thinking and before I could stop myself, I turned and said, "Mike, is that you?!" He grinned and we both hugged each other tight, me with Michael still in my arms and my pregnant belly sticking out to forever. I don't remember much of our conversation except I was so incredibly attracted to him. Then all of the sudden this girl walks up to him, he puts his arm around her and introduces me to his girlfriend. I don't remember much of it, except feeling awkward and uncomfortable and wishing Mike Unrau had been with me! I do remember how incredibly shaken up I was and confused as to WHY I was feeling this way when I was SO happily married and devoted to my husband! I said a quick goodbye to him and his girlfriend and booked it out of there pretty fast. I remember walking downstairs and around the corner and just sitting down to catch my breath because I was shaken up so badly. I calmed myself down and then Michael and I left the mall, I was terrified to run into him again! Once again I wondered how you could love two men at the same time. But I figured it was the idea of Mike Roe and the whole history of him being my first love that I was in love with, not the actual person. 2 weeks after running into Mike at Pet City, Mike Unrau told me of his first affair. I remember thanking God that I didn't run into Mike Roe AFTER I learned of Mike's affair because that would have been too tempting. I knew that i wanted to try and forgive Mike and make our marriage work. And I did my best. But it's curious to me that all that happened right when it did. God has a plan...of this I am beginning to see and understand!