Happy Birthday to Laurel

Guest Blogger: Adam Darowski

Today is Laurel's birthday. I won't say which one, but it is somewhere in the very low 30's. My parents and brothers and sisters have a family message board, and one of the things we'll do is each answer the same set of "get to know you" questions. The last one we did was 12 questions about high school. As a tribute to Laurel on her birthday, here are the some of the questions, and my answers, from the high school survey:

1 - What High School did you go to? I actually did my freshman year at Colonial Heights High School in Virginia (freshman went to high school there) and then my sophomore through senior years at Mountain View High School in Orem (we arrived in Utah a week or so before school started my sophomore year).

2 - What year did you graduate? 1996

3 - Did you have school spirit? Not really. I only went to a couple of football or basketball games my entire time at Mountain View. I did not go to many of the dances. I was pretty happy to leave the school each day when class ended. I did not have a letterman's jacket or any of that sort of thing. I guess you could say that I chose not to embrace the high school experience.

4 - Did you normally eat school lunch or bag lunch? My sophomore year I ate in the cafeteria. As noted above, we moved to Utah just a week or so before school started, so when school began I knew absolutely no one (other than my sister Virginia). I became very intro-verted that year and did not make many friends. I often sat alone in the cafeteria to eat (sad violin music playing the background). I loved the school cafeteria food. Loved it. Especially when they did chicken fried steak, with mashed potatoes, gravy, and roll. Absolutely delicious. I don't remember what I did junior year. Senior year (sad violin music continuing to play in the background) I stopped eating lunch altogether and spent the lunch hour in the library either doing homework or reading for pleasure. School ended at 2:10, so I could last until then without being too hungry. I would try to sit in a spot in the library where no one could see me, like I was trying to be invisible (kind of depressing to think about all of that again). Man oh man these were some awkward times.

5 - Were you considered popular? Uh, no. Please see many of my answers above. I did not make many friends and I don't keep in touch with anyone I graduated with. This was of my own doing, though, so don't feel sorry for me. I chose to be a loner and went out of my way not to know anyone.

6 - What is one of the best memories you have of high school? Well, the dark clouds described above had one very excellent silver lining. The first person I met in high school was my beautiful wife Laurel. She, a senior, and I, a sophomore. We sat next to each other in seminary class and I was completely and totally smitten by her. Like Cupid shot a bazooka into my heart. I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. On the crush scale of 1 to 10, I was easily a 10. The highlight of any day was seeing her (I was a bit of a stalker back then), and, if I were lucky, talking to her. Just imagine the snuggliest scenario a kitten can be in, warm and cozy and snuggled, up, and then it closes its eyes tightly and starts to purr, as content as it could possibly be. That I what I felt like when I was around Laurel. We became friends that first semester of mine. Classes changed for the second semester, so I did not see her as much. I remember during the christmas break between that first and second semester, when I did not see her for two or three weeks, there were moments during the day when I would just ache because I missed her so much. We went on a few social outings together (I guess you could call them dates). I was completely and utterly in love with her, but I knew she was older and heading off to college, so I figured nothing would come it. Still, deep down inside my heart it never occurred to me that I would marry anyone else. And, in one of the epic love stories of all time, Laurel and I are now in our ninth year of marriage, with three kids and a lovely life together.

7 - If you could, would you do it all again? Just that first semester when I fell in love with Laurel. The rest of it was total crap.