While I wasn’t too fond of Devon when we initially met, he grew on me.

Part of it, I think, is due to my rather…eventful sophomore year in college.  Between dealing with a friend of mine committing suicide and someone else who I thought was a friend threatening me; it was not my best year ever.  The sad part is, it brought out some of Devon’s better qualities.  Like he’s very protective of the people he cares about, he will try to make you laugh when you feel like crap and even give you a hug when you’ve been visibly crying (and he’s not known to be a hugger).

Throughout the course of college we did get the chance to hang out more and by the end of college he was one of the people I hung out with the most.  He was easily one of my best friends by the time we got to graduation.

His brother mentioned to me later (much later) that when he met me, he thought I was the female version of Devon.  Which has some truth, in a lot of ways, which is probably why I couldn’t stand him when I first met him.  It’s also why we probably, eventually, got along so well.

I enjoyed that we had the same graduation ceremony (which I’ve talked about before, so I won’t bore you with it again) and we made that whole “let’s keep in touch” chat that everyone does.  Except we actually did it.  We are two people who don’t often do that well, but we managed to do it where the other was concerned.

The part that always gets people…..and it even makes me shake my head looking back…..

I was in a relationship for about 5 years.  My ex and I started dating right before my sophomore year in the summer of 2005 and ended around Thanksgiving of 2009.  I was 19 when we started dating and 24 when we broke up and it was not an easy break up because we were sort of, kind of engaged when we broke up (meaning he asked, I didn’t say no, but I never started planning a wedding nor did I really advertise the fact that we were engaged), so while it was sort of a mutual break-up, it was hard.  The first person I told, ironically, was Devon.

The day after my ex and I broke up, I’d spent like half the night up crying and I texted Devon to see if he was available for lunch because I needed to get out of my house; he was; so I went up and within about two seconds, all Devon had to say was “What’s wrong?”.  I didn’t even get the words out without sobbing and I continued to ugly cry for like the next hour.

Even if I don’t have red, puffy eyes, he can always tell when something is wrong with me.  And as bad as he claims to be at comforting people, he’s not as bad as he thinks.

There were several times over the course of these 8-9 years where one of us was comforting the other; we helped each other through breakups, and deaths of people we cared about, and just general bad crap.

But there has also been a lot of good times, a lot of adventures, laughs, and memories.  There is so much we will never let the other one live down.  Like I will never let him forget when he had me driving all over the state of West Virginia because he “knew where he was going” meanwhile we passed the same barn five times.  This is why I have to use my GPS instead of him.  He’s bad at directions; there, I said it.

But then….around the middle of 2013 and after 9 years of friendship….he had to go and change the dynamic….yes….HE did…..it’s all his fault….

to be continued……