Marrying young has become almost outdated. You hear stories mostly from older relatives about how they married their high school sweetheart. But now, mainly due to changes in our society like social media, high school sweethearts are hard to come by. I lucked out.
I met my fiancé in the sixth grade when full bangs and Aeropostale shirts were in. You know how some people say when boys are mean to you, it means they like you? It’s true. Kevin was the definition of a jerk. He made snide comments about my outfits, my hair, even sometimes wrote me mean notes- always had a way to tease me. At that age, I didn’t think anything of it except that boys in general were just mean and annoying. As we got older, Kevin became labeled as what we call a “player.” He went through girls like toilet paper. He was the type who was a complete jerk 99.9% of the time, but then out of nowhere would say the sweetest thing. With his bright blue eyes, and his ability to charm the pants off of anyone- I told myself I would never fall for it. But no matter what I told myself, there was always something about him in the back of my mind that I could never put a finger on. Perhaps it was because he was the boy your mama warned you about, the one you knew not to get involved with, but somehow I thought I could change that. And I did. I was the girl who turned the bad boy into prince charming. Every girl’s dream. Little did I know, I would turn out to be the lucky one.
It all began at the homecoming dance of 2012. We were in 10th grade. That was the first time I had actually bought a dress, and I was really excited about it. It was blue and purple with rhinestones, and a big poufy bottom. Kevin happened to notice the dress too. He slipped me a sweet compliment in the hall about how beautiful I looked, and I was utterly shocked. Kevin Correll, being nice to me- what the hell!? After that, he stepped up his game and asked me to slow dance. We danced to Scotty McCreery’s “The Trouble with Girls,” and everyone around us watched (they were shocked too). Being in his arms for the first time was a feeling I will never forget. After that night, I was chopped liver. Everyone in school on Monday kept asking if we were a thing, if we were dating, blah blah blah. You know how that goes. I was totally into this kid but his bad boy rep was not forgotten. For the next few months, I made him work for it. I think my exact words were, “You need to get your shit together if you ever want to date me.” As he continued to bug me and bug me, one day, I just said okay (it wasn’t until January - I really made him work for it, HA).
Our journey was a little rocky- mainly due to some major family issues I had going on. But Kevin continued to surprise me each and every day. Believe it or not, he actually made me make the first move- I kissed him! Mind you, that was my first kiss, and this butthead made me go for it. I still can’t get over it. Anyways, we spent the first few months butting heads because I told him how it was, and he didn’t like it. He eventually got over it, and we both tore down each other’s walls. I got to see a side of him that I didn’t even know existed. He wrote me sweet little notes every day and left them in my locker. He always knew how to make me laugh, and most importantly, he always bought me Reese’s. How could I say no? A boy who makes good jokes, and brings me my favorite candy in the world? It was a win-win. Like any other couple, we had our rough patches in the road, but we always found our way back to each other. He even broke my heart once, but I was smart enough to let him put it back together.
Every couple is different, just like their story. I was lucky enough to fall in love in high school, even through all the growing up we each had to do. Kevin was my rock. He became my best friend. We balanced each other out, and he pushed me out of my comfort zone (in a good way). We were each other’s biggest supporters throughout high school, and we got to experience all of those big life moments together- like prom and graduation. We decided to go to separate colleges in order to each follow our own path, but we remained together. We are still working out all the kinks in a long distance relationship- but now we are engaged. We recently got engaged this past July, and yes, we are 19 and 20. Some of you may think it’s too young, or that we are going to be completely different people by the end of college. We’ve heard it all, and we know. We know we still have growing and changing to do, and we still have a lot of life ahead of us, that’s why we take it one day at a time. We are just enjoying our journey together.
I get this question a lot too, “How do you know he’s the one?” To be honest, I don’t. How the hell am I supposed to know? I’ve always been a believer that we have multiple soulmates. And some of you may criticize me and say well how can you believe that, and get engaged. It’s easy - I couldn’t picture my life without Kevin. There’s no “aha” moment, or sign from God letting you know he’s the one. It’s a combination of all the challenges, emotions, feelings, all of the pieces of your puzzle that you’ve experienced. There are multiple moments along the way where I thought to myself, “wow, I really love this kid.” The first one- he showed me that he could shoot milk from the gap in his teeth, and I thought, “holy cow, this kid is pretty awesome.” Kevin is and always will be my very best friend. (He lets me fart in front of him, even sometimes on him. That’s a pretty solid foundation right there.) He has pushed me to become the person I’ve always wanted to be, and he continues to push me every day. He not only accepts all of my quirks, including my Harry Potter one, but embraces them. He loves me for me, and I don’t think I could ask for anything more. There’s never a moment where I second guess myself or any part of our journey.
Kevin was my first kiss, and he will be my last. He is the man I want to wake up to every morning, and the man I want to be the father of my children. We are still growing, and I can’t wait to see what God has planned for each of us. And no, we don’t know what is going to happen in the future, but we know that right now, we love each other. Life is short- and I believe that one of the best experiences of life is being able to experience it with the person you love, so why waste any time?
I am a very lucky girl.
