Soap Opera Sunday! Installment One of "Summer of Love and Hate"

This Soap Opera is going to be a long one, so I’m going to spread it out over a few weeks. Sorry about that, but there’s just too much juicy detail to cram into one blog entry. So here she goes . . .

Every summer in high school, I went to a “church camp” run by the LDS Church Education System. It was (and still is I suppose) called Especially for Youth or “EFY.” It was always great fun, spiritually uplifting and a TOTAL meat market. It was amazing how many kids at this camp aimed to give us spiritual experiences ended up hooking up in like a day. It was insane! My first two years going I met some awesome people and had a wonderful time, but I’d never met any “special” boys. Until year three in Santa Barbara, California.

That summer was the first time I think I was . . . appealing to the opposite sex. I had finally outgrown some of my baby fat, learned how to dress a little better and I was having the best summer of my life. I’d just sung with my high school choir at Carnegie Hall and now I was in sunny So. Cal for the rest of the summer to hang out and play. I was going to EFY at a campus on the beach and then my best friend, who we’ll just call “Laine” for this story, was coming to stay with me at my Grandma’s house for like a month.

At this camp the hot boys were EVERYWHERE. I was ironically in a group with my best friend’s boyfriend and all of his friends, and there was one I had an interest in. On the first day I met a beautiful boy named Nathan who I had decided needed to be my boyfriend. I was having a blast with these two boys until I saw HIM.

He was tan, dark, silky haired, dimpled, green eyed god that I just knew I had to marry. He was gorgeous. He had a soccer player’s body, I could just tell. He had a gorgeous, slightly crooked smile. He was beautiful. And I had to have him.

Then, on the third day of camp, he sat next to ME at lunch. I was immediately smitten. He not only played soccer but also football. He had an illustrious engineering internship (while in HIGH SCHOOL!) at JPL and was working on the Mars rover project. This guy was gorgeous, funny, athletic and SMART. And the green eyes . . . oh the eyes. I was madly in love. And he was interested in me! I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Then, the icing on the cake. It turned out that his family lived close to my Grandparents house and better yet, they had a sailboat in the harbor of the town my grandparents actually lived in. And even BETTER than all of that, he was spending tons of time sailing that summer and he wanted to come hang out with ME after EFY was over.

So, while still dabbling in my interest with the other two boys (I mean why put all of your eggs in one basket says me?), I had my sites set on Jason. He was perfect. I loved him. At the last dance we spent most of the night together, dancing with each other and taking pictures. We laughed and made plans for the next month. I was excited for Laine to meet him and he had a friend he wanted to set her up with. It was all perfectly perfect.

The next morning the camp was over. My Grandma arrived to drive me back down the coast to her house and Jason and I exchanged phone numbers, hugged good-bye and made plans to meet about a week later at his boat in Los Alamitos Harbor.

I drove away giddy with excitement, making plans for our summer together in my head. There would be kissing and hugging and snuggling and it was going to be the BEST.SUMMER.EVER.

I should have known it was all too good to be true. But I have always been a little too optimistic and dumb when it comes to romance. Stupid, silly me . . .

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Now, as promised, the fun part! Other Soap Opera Sunday's for your reading pleasure! For more soapy fun run and check out:

Anno's Place

The Quiltmaker's Gift

Soccer Mom in Denial

Fourier Analyst

Brillig the Great

Novembrance

Mimi

Temporary?Insanity

Canadian Flake

Die Without Yourself

Magically Mama

Now, if there are more of you who played along, in order for Brillig and I to give you linky-love, you need to make sure to let us know that you played! Send either of us an email, or let us know in our comments somewhere and we'll make sure you get added to the list! Also, please make sure to link back to us so people can find the rules and find the complete list of participants!

Now, go forth and read!!

Oh, PS, if you need the rules, check out this post.

Smooches!