We were college sweethearts...I met him before the very first day of school and had no idea that this tall kid on the front steps of the student union, this unreservedly and unabashedly open hearted boy was going to, one day, be waiting for me at the altar.  He was wearing a blue and black striped button down and a pair of worn out jeans.  I couldn't tell from a distance that he looked like the young John Cusack in "Say Anything."  The year was 1988, right before that film came out.  Some might argue I looked a little bit like Iona Skye from that same flick, but my nickname on campus quickly became Julia Roberts due, I assume, to my long, wavy hair and radiant smile.  I was happy because I had finally made it back to school after a grueling year bedridden from a virulent staph infection that almost killed me.  I had been a track star at my previous college, perhaps contracting the MRSA in the locker room or dorm, but back then nobody was familiar with this kind of infection and I was not treated properly, which brought me to the brink of leaving this world much too soon.  I fought back hard and in the end, to the shock of my doctors, especially the experts at the Mayo Clinic, where I flew out in desperation and returned home just as sick as before, I finally kicked the staph back into submission through my own methods.  These strategies involved rigorous exercise despite a systemic skin infection that was equivalent to a third degree burn.  I also changed my diet and forced myself to get up and believe I would live, and I focussed my fire on returning to college in the fall.

So here I was, having transferred from my old school, needing a place where there was a great hospital incase I relapsed, eager to begin my life again.  If anyone saw my skin that day as I walked towards the quad where my future husband stood on the front steps of that huge, glass gathering place for the students, they would not believe I had ever been sick.  The doctors warned me that I would be covered in scars if I ever recovered but they were wrong.  My skin shed off my body so many times I couldn't tell you, leaving a fine, baby-white layer of the most perfect and poreless skin a girl could ever have.  It was fragile skin too, but blemish free and hard won. To keep it from returning to a sickened state I constantly bathed in oil baths and lathered myself in creams all brought back from the Mayo Clinic.

When this boy saw me, walking alongside my cousin, Debbie, towards the student union, all he understood was that the most beautiful dark-haired girl he'd ever seen was approaching him.  He did not know that only a few months ago I considered myself the ugliest girl in the world, covered in sores akin to Job's nightmare sitting on top of an ash heap, scratching at myself until I bled, day and night, night and day, for there is nothing more horribly itchy than a staph infection and nothing satisfies that itch but the right antibiotic and they never prescribed me one.  I was not used to my new appearance and lived in constant fear that the staph would return and cover me from head to toe.  I didn't know it was staph back then, I simply thought that I suffered from some bizarre form of lichenified eczema, as the Mayo Clinic inaccurately diagnosed.

We must have been quite a sight, my beautiful cousin with her thick blonde hair that fell in natural waves and wide light eyes, and me with my long dark hair, pale skin, and blue eyes. We were  Goldilocks and Snow White--no wonder the boys liked us so much, everywhere we walked on campus we were noticed, yet I was surprised by the intensity of this boy, yelling at us from across the quad, shouting: "Debbie!  Debbie!  I missed you soo much! Come here! Come here!"  He did not seem to care or even notice that everyone walking across the green was put off by his incessant shouting.  He couldn't seem to wait until we got there, he just had to announce to the whole world that he missed my cousin and was beyond grateful for her return.  She threw me an embarrassed look as he continued to cry out:"Deb, I thought of you all summer!  Come here!"  he was motioning for us to meet him on the steps.  I immediately decided this must be a terrible case of puppy love and this nineteen year-old boy was so sick from it he was acting like an impatient five year-old, gesticulating, calling out, practically jumping up and down with excitement that my cousin was back on campus.

So we met him on the steps and my first thought was, "Who is this geeky boy?"  He was that odd combination of handsome and nerdy--his jeans were the perfect worn in blue, but up close I now realized that his striped shirt didn't fit him quite right. His face was angular, handsome, but his blue eyes were hidden behind a horrible pair of Waldo-esque glasses his mother had  hand-chosen for him.  He was tall with broad shoulders, athletic looking, but his wrists were super skinny, almost thin as a girl's.  He was all kinds of contrasts, yelling at us one minute to hurry up and come to him, but suddenly shy now, almost taciturn.  I did not know that he was shocked to meet me.  He focussed on talking to Debbie, catching up on her summer, letting her know again that he missed her deeply.  What he told me later was that a bell had gone off in his head, like some huge chime rung in heaven, and he just knew that I was "the one," the very one he had been waiting and praying for since he was fourteen years-old.  I was his dream girl, literally a girl he dreamt of on many consecutive nights and wrote down all the details about.  These prophetic visions were entrusted to his best friend who locked the writings up in a safe to be opened on that fateful day when he met the girl he kept seeing in his sleep.  That had been five years ago.  He had almost forgotten about the dream journaling and the girl with the wavy, dark hair that kept inhabiting his midnight hours.  Now he felt that he was staring right at her and everything finally made sense.

I was the one he'd been waiting for, saving himself for...for all I knew, standing before me, was the last American male virgin on a college campus in 1988!  For the eighties were a time of freedom, rock and roll, Bon Jovi love ballads, big hair, big dreams, pot, sex, tight jeans, keg parties, and adventure-- at least for those in their teens and twenties.  Every boy had a condom in his wallet and every girl was either on the pill or using the "pull and pray" method. Planned Parenthood was booming with student visits.  The morning after pill was considered an amazing new invention and many of my friends, after a drunken night they sorely regretted, went stumbling into the nondescript building a few miles from campus and begged the nurses for the pill.  This little capsule hopefully erased their indiscretions, giving them a second chance at youth...but back to my infatuated and virginal boy.  So there he stood, instantly besotted, convinced I was his soul-mate, future bride, the mother of his imagined children...and here I was thinking, "Something's not right, something's weird... but why am I so drawn to him?"  Of course I had no idea at the time he was bi-polar and looked at the world through an entirely different lens than most people.  I also would never have suspected that, due to his deep conviction to wait for the right girl, he'd never carried a condom in his wallet and any time he came close to giving in to his desires he let the opportunity slip away or, much to his relief, something interrupted the moment and he was able to hold off.  Later, he would tell me he was very grateful for this...that waiting for me was one of the best decisions of his life.

I suppose you will not be surprised when I tell you that my new admirer followed us back to Debbie's dorm and then later followed me to mine where he somehow managed to convince me to take out my violin and play for him, something I rarely did, not even for family members.  I preferred to play in private and, at that time, suffered from extreme stage fright.  Yet, somehow he coaxed and pleaded with me to play for him, so I did. And he LOVED it, begged me for more, while our friends drifted off to do other things.  Then he kneeled down to examine every single tape I owned (yes, that was back in the day of cassettes), treating my three-tiered bookshelf like a mini shrine to the gods of classical music--for that was my passion.  He called Chopin "Choppin" and "Wagner" "Wag Ner" but I forgave him,  finding the patience to somehow correct him without an edge. Later that night we played pool in the school's rec room and when I leaned over the cue and looked back to see if he was admiring the view, noticed his eyes shift away.  The more polite he acted the more I flirted, but I was surprised to see that even bumping my hips back into him as he leaned over to show me a proper hold on the cue brought only a muttered apology and a quick maneuver away.  Boys never did this to me!  How could this be?  I was used to so much attention...had I misinterpreted his friendship as something more than he intended?  Could he possibly be gay?  It never occurred to me that he was a gentleman, honestly, in that college world this kind of respect was rarely, if ever, given.

I wondered, later that night, as I lay in my dorm bed on the sagging mattress worn in by countless young romantics, if this newfound friend was going to bore me or become a true friend. Either way, I could not figure out exactly what made him tick. I'd heard the cliche phrase, some people march to a different drum, but this boy was marching to an entirely different instrument, and I'm not even sure marching is the right word.  While the world put one foot in front of the other and beat its steady rhythm, he was a more like a child sitting in a forrest glade in a patch of sunlight, whistling his own, private tune...then stopping to smile at me.