How It Started

The first time I saw Kevin was when he was teaching Sunday School, the week before I began college. He was almost 23, and I was 18. Now, let me say this: I do not, nor have I ever, believed in love at first sight, soul mates, or fate; and yet, when Kevin opened his lesson with a corny joke, I just knew. The closest I can come to describing the sensation was someone made something special just for me and was watching with pride and expectancy to see my reaction. A spiritual ta-da! Like some divine valet was awaiting my approval. A wordless, eager question in my mind: "So, what do you think?" And I thought it was good.

Falling for Jared

I am in school now and have shifted my time away from blogging to more productive things, but I feel like I cannot leave off where I did. There was more left unsaid that ought to be grouped with the theme at hand. If I am going to be looking back at old journals, at old regrets, and old feelings, then there is one person who is missing. I haven't written about Jared.

Jared was casually charming. In fact, he was casual in just about everything. I see him in flip flops and khakis, singing along to Spanish songs or old country in his decrepit red car. He was tall, dark, and casually handsome--but far too un-brooding for romantic inclinations. He was always involved in every activity, the laid-back center of the ward social circles. Or maybe just mine.   

This was the year 2007, Austin, after I'd dropped out of BYU to follow Kevin. Initially, I was dating Kevin, and that drama took up most of my time and focus. And for a while, that spring, Jared was dating a girl in our ward. I don't even know how long or how serious it was, but I was jealous and anxiously denying it. Even still, Jared pops up by name in my journal. When Kevin couldn't pick me up from the bus station, Jared was there. When I struggled to make it to activities or church or institute, he was there. When I needed anything, he was there. And Kevin wasn't.

But Jared was everybody's hero. He would drop anything to help anyone, any time. I remember once, him driving three hours to help a complete stranger, a friend of a friend of a friend, whose car had broken down. Jared was a protector. That's why I never took to heart any of his "thereness." Or tried not to. I knew it meant more to me than to him. He charmed everyone, a general favorite among the fairer sex.

And I tried very hard to resist.

Nevertheless, I talked of him nonstop. Ted, Emilie, and Bryan all heard of him during our catching up phone calls. They loved him for me. One problem, however, was that my friends in Texas also loved him. Just, not for me. Vivian and Elizabeth both had crushes on him. It was Bryan all over again. Jared even took me with him to meet with other girls, as I had a boyfriend and was thus "safe."

Jared was the reason that I broke up with Kevin. Not that I was choosing Jared over him--because, again, I didn't think I had that option--but because Jared had been there for me through those horrible months of adjusting to a strange place with no job and no friends, while Kevin had not. Jared knew how my day had been, how work was going, what we would do that night. I talked to Kevin rarely and saw him even less. I chose my friendship with Jared over my dating relationship with Kevin.

And, once I was single, Jared began to show romantic interest. He took me out the very night that I told him, in fact. The most memorable was when he took me to the movies. On the way to our seats, he turned and pushed me against the wall. I waited, breathless, for him to kiss me, terrified to be the one to make the move, frozen and waiting and hoping. And then he stepped back and we watched the film in friendly casualness. Like nothing had happened. 

But that wasn't the end. When we drove, he would rest his arm on the back on of my chair, hand on my neck, fingers in my hair. He took me to the movies and to dinner, danced with me in the grocery store, drove me to every activity. We'd sit in his car and talk for hours. He told me I was beautiful and fun and that he always enjoyed being around me. He would wait until we were alone, and then lean in close as though to kiss me; but every time he backed away. I thought he was teasing, but I wanted so badly for him to mean it.

I was so in love with that boy.

He took me to play ultimate frisbee and won my heart with his gallantry. He dressed up for the twenties-themed party and looked at me like I was the only one in the room. He got me to sing karaoke and play volleyball. He selected a Bollywood film to watch on a night in. He was fun.  He was perfect. 

He asked me once when I would ask him out. I told him that he had to ask me. But nothing ever happened, and I don't know why. I once asked him straight out where I stood with him, but he refused to answer. He also wouldn't answer what response he was hoping for when he pretended he was going to kiss me. He told me on multiple occasions that he wanted to kiss me, to which I replied, "so do it," but then he'd tell me I should be dating other people, making me promise not to kiss him unless we were dating officially. He'd joke about finding a dark corner, but he never asked me out. So, despite his flirting like crazy, I never knew where I stood with him. 

I stayed in Austin, instead of returning to school, and Jared helped me move to my new apartment. He came over for dinner and cake and chick flicks. But he never asked me out. He told me I was limiting myself. Then, he just kind of disappeared from my life and my journal. Months later, I ended up going back to Kevin. But when I moved away in December, saying goodbye to Jared was...tender. And gut-wrenching.

He came to visit me when I was in Provo. He told me that he was looking for a wife. Someone who looked like an elf, he said. I thought he meant me. He had made such comments on my ears before. He came that night to my house to play games with me and my sisters, and I texted him under the table. I asked why he never asked me out. "Because you were in love with Kevin," he said. "I saw no point." I tried to correct his understanding, as we sat out on my porch in the dark. But I guess he still saw no point, because he never made a move. I was heartbroken. 

Jared met my moving truck when I went back to Austin, but so did Kevin. Jared started dating Andria and got engaged before I did. I cried with jealousy. Even being with Kevin, I hated that Jared was with someone else. 

When I look back on my life, there are three people who, romantically, were influential parts of my life apart from Kevin: Bryan, Jon, and Jared. 

With Bryan, if anything had been different between us, it would have played out one of two ways. We would have either continued on best friends for two more months, or possibly dated and broken up, just as I did with Kevin. Though I might have healed and grown more as a person sooner, things between the two of us would have continued on after in the same trajectory and be the same today.

With Jon, I mostly see the life that I wanted: the big family, the adventures, the adoration. I am envious of that life, but I am not jealous. I was not in love with Jon. I doubt any of that life would have been mine. Had I continued to date him, I might have learned to better communicate, but we also might have ended up in a Ted and Emilie drama of being unable to stay together or apart. We wouldn't be friends today, but my life would be the same.

Jared, on the other hand, would have changed my life. 

Not kissing him, when he pushed me against the carpeted wall of the movie theater, is one of my life's regrets. I feel like who I am and where I am have hinged on that moment. I don't know what would have happened if we had kissed, but I know it is not what has happened. I would have stayed in Austin for him. I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. Had he wanted me, my life would have gone up in flames, and I would have been the one holding the match. 

But he never wanted me.

 

Good News

 I was given a scholarship to nursing school!

Resolution

There is no problem in life but complaining about it makes it worse. Time to just pull up my big girl pants and fix myself.

Think of Me - Emmy Rossum | Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Op...

Reaching Out

Eventually you realize that you are the only one instigating interaction, the only one starting conversations. No matter how politely the other party responds, no matter how friendly, the level of friendship is not reciprocated. There is no reaching back on their part. They are not thinking of you, missing you, wishing for more of a relationship. 

I have tried to revitalize some friendships recently, in light of my trip to Provo. Tried to create some sort of casual message relationship, like I have with my siblings. Like, "hey, I saw this funny thing you'd like," and "I had a weird dream where you were NPH," and only half-facetious, "when will you come visit me?" etc.. 

Ted and Tarythe have taken up the new dynamic eagerly, replying and reciprocating, and I feel more a part of their lives. Others, no so much. And I need to get the hint and leave them alone. 

John Denver - Rocky Mountain High (from The Wildlife Concert)

Family Vacation

I just spent most of a week with most of my siblings up in a mountain cabin. For days, my kids ran wild with cousins in pine forests, climbing on boulders. We did a couple  planned activities, such as our yearly horseback riding. But, mostly, it was wild, in the most wholesome sense of the word. 

17 Days

It has been seventeen days since I sent the latest chapters to the editor. The fact that I haven't heard back is freaking me out.

Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero (Official Music Video)

Mostly Fine

 

This is how I've chosen to illustrate the states of my marriage. I am the blue circles on the left, and Kevin is the yellow ones on the right. The size of the circle represents the individual state of being, from struggling out to thriving. Kevin is most often in his middle circle, maybe 90% of the time. I vacillate more, spending time in each.

And with my vacillation comes fluctuation in our marital happiness.

When I am struggling, our circles do not overlap. There is no marriage, really. No connection. Kevin is fine, and I am not. There is no support given or received. If I need something, I need to look outside my marriage for the strength to get me through.

When both of us are fine, which is the majority of the time, then our circles also overlap in the light green. We're fine. Our marriage is adequate. So, if I am doing well, then our marriage is pretty good. It's not really that our relationship has changed, but that I am more fulfilled in and of myself, and thus require less from him. 

When we are both thriving, both our best selves, then our marriage falls in the dark green. As I said, Kevin rarely leaves his contented central circle, but this has happened on a handful of vacations. It is enough to keep me hoping for something better and more fulfilling than we have. Hope can be a two-edged sword, however, as it also lessens my satisfaction with anything less. 

For a few months, Kevin and I were both struggling. We're better now. We're both doing fine and thus our marriage is adequate. Friendly. Supportive. Respectful. It is not the type of marriage that I want, not intimate companionship, but it is still a functional partnership. Not the type of marriage he or I could ever justify leaving. 

We get by, and we've accepted that. And I don't know, given our different desires for emotional intimacy and different goals for life, how we can ever sustain anything better than fine.