My Real Life Love Story -- Part 5 -- Okay.

When my husband asked me out I almost said no.

I had a lot of reasons, but none of them were very good. I felt loyalty to my best friend, but by this time, she was married to the guy of her dreams and we hadn't spoken more than twice in a year. I was going on a mission, but not for a year, and no one said I should become a nun until then. But I had never ever said no to a guy brave enough to ask me out, and I wasn't going to start on this hot guy I had known forever, so after  "But don't you have a girlfriend?" (No, we broke up), and "Are you sure you know who it is you're speaking too?", (been burned by that one before) he repeated his question, and I said, "Okay."

Our first date was amazing.  I straightened my hair, (old habits die hard) but it rained and went curly anyway. In the car on the way from the restaurant he sang along to the radio.We went to go see Johnny English, and I've loved Rowan Atkinsen since I first had a crush on Chase. After the movie, I told a slightly inapproriate joke. (So there's a pirate with a steering wheel in his pants, and I walked up to him and said, "Hey...do you know that there's a steering wheel in your pants?", and the pirate said, "Aye, It's driving me nuts.") This is the kind of joke I find hilarious, because I'm still five years old, but we both relaxed after that.

The funny thing is, when you've known someone for years, the whole first date awkwardness isn't quite so awkward. Darren saw me fall out of a tree when I was sixteen. It was the side of his car I punched when I didn't win state for my drama competition. When I said that stupid joke, it made me forget my "enough" self, the only character I ever played on a date, and was just myself.

We went out for Jamba Juice after the movie, and he started talking about his mission, and I was so impressed. I always thought he was awesome, but the mission changed him to awesome+. At this point, it was like 10:00 and we still wanted to hang out, so we went to my parent's house, and after a few minutes of my mom and dad being chatty, we went downstairs to the T.V. room, and played on my guitar, singing goofy songs until my curfew. I walked him to my door (because...Feminism). I told him I was going on a mission, and he smiled and said, "Oh, Okay," like he took that as a personal challenge and then gave me a hug. After he left, I went back downstairs and picked up my guitar, and sat there, my fingers on the frets, staring off into space, this giant grin slowly seeping into my jazz hands.

You know the whole three days rule? That's a rule that never applied to me. Guys didn't ask me out for a second date, and the one guy who did, waited nine months between dates, so you could tell he was really into me. I had zero expectations of a second date, but Darren called me the next day and asked if I wanted to go to Walmart with him to go buy shirts. It was kind of a letdown, to be honest, to go from this awesome first date to Walmart, but I can tell you we've spent far more Saturday afternoons at Walmart than we have Friday nights at dinner and a movie. And it was really fun to go to Walmart and buy shirts with Darren.

And then he didn't call me, which was okay because I was working four jobs, but by Thursday I was like...Dude what's happening, and I called him, because...feminism. He'd gone camping with his brothers, and they all teased him in the background about this cute girl he kept talking about.

This was the time I had caught that he actually "liked" me, and this was, of course, foreign territory for me. So we made a plan to go out on another date, and I prepared for it as The Date With The Guy Who Liked Me, and I was more than slightly terrified that I'd mess everything up or say the wrong thing. So I dressed up really fancy, only to find that Darren had invited our friend Josh to go with us. Now you're probably thinking inviting another dude on a date would be a bad thing, but that's because you don't know Josh. Josh is exactly the same today as he was ten years ago, which is exactly the same as he was ten years before that, and he'll be exactly the same ten years from now. He is a character stuck in time, and the fact Darren wanted to bring him with us, made me like him more. So on our third date, we went antiquing (which we've never done since) with Josh. It was awesome. Darren and I both love old things, which is good, because we're poor and our house is full of old things.

Afterwards, Darren dropped Josh off,  drove me home,  gave me a hug, and then told me he LOVED me.

And I was like, "um.... Thank you?"

It's funny, I had been so impatient to fall in love, and for someone to fall in love with me, but when it happened, I was SO not ready for it. I was terrified.

We hung out like this for three weeks. Every spare second we had we spent together, and he kept saying he loved me, and I'd panic every time and say thank you. I was so dumb and he was very persistant. When he kissed me for the first time, I was like, Why is your heart pounding so loud?", and he was like, "Okay stop talking for a second", and I was like "I think you're having a heart attack." And he's like "Seriously stop talking, I want to kiss you," and I was like...um...head exploding...panicking..."Okay? I'll allow it."

 It was perfect. My own personal brand of perfect.

But then I had to go back to school. I loved school, lived for school, but after Darren, I dreaded it. I had the world's best roommates, and we were renting this awesome house with a real kitchen and a back yard, and a house across the street full of cute boys, and I've never been so lonely in my life. I'd watch a movie, and it's be something so stupid that I know Darren would have slept through, but I wanted to hear his snore. I'd be in the best theatre class ever, with amazing instructors, and awesome friends doing what I loved, and I wasn't satisfied. I never imagined I'd love someone more than theatre. Darren and I emailed each other all the time, like five or six times a day, and I'd call him every night.

That Friday, he drove up to drive me home. I showed him around the university, and we went into the arts office. The secretary was one of my friends, and she said, "And who's this?" I didn't know what to say. We had never talked about it. We had never made a label. So I said, "This is my...friend Darren." while Darren lowered his eyebrows and shook his head at me.

"So I'm your friend," he said as he held my hand. And I just said, "Yeah.''

That night we watched Meet Joe Black, which is an awesome movie Darren slept through, and at the end there this amazing version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, and Darren asked me to dance with him. I'd often danced all alone to Louis Armstrong, and I didn't know I was rehearsing for the real thing. I didn't know all those heartbreaks were just a rehearsal for the real thing, that I wouldn't know where my heart was if I hadn't felt it break so often. As we danced, I was finally convinced of the thing I had known since our first date, maybe since the very first time I heard him sing that goofy solo, that I loved him. That we fit. He kissed me and I didn't panic, and I think he saw the change in my eye because he told me again that he loved me and this time I said it back.

Click play. This is the song. Our song.

It was magic in that moment. We were finally on the same page. I was in love, and I wasn't scared.

Then he got down on one knee.

And I punched him.

He said: Ow.
I said: Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.
He looked up at me and took a breath.
I said: ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh.
He said: So...
I said: ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh
He said: Would you marry me?
I said: ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh
He fell on the ground and said: holycrapholycrapholycrap.

And then he looked at me like he was waiting for a response, and my mind had exploded, and I had forgotten what words were, and I wondered briefly if it'd be okay to say thank you and then go home. That had worked a lot when he kept telling me that he loved me and I wasn't ready for it. But I didn't think thank you would work in this circumstance. I mean it was honest. I was so grateful for this goofy handsome guy who loved me, and waited for me to not be so scared. Who was kneeling there with his head on my knee while he waited for me to tell him yes or no, knowing full well how terrified I was and that there was a good chance I'd bolt and not come back. But he looked at me with brave eyes, those same brave eyes that have told me I could do it when I was about to have our first kid or when I was about to click publish or anytime I climbed to the top of a slide and then panicked and froze at the top, and I knew that he was brave enough, and strong enough and loyal enough to trust my heart and my life to, and that this time enough mattered, because even if it failed in a burning  trail of glory, I loved him enough to risk it.

I opened my eyes, and said the bravest words I've ever said.

Okay.

Enough- My Real Life Love Story-- Part 4

There's a kind of formula for writing a novel meant for a teenage girl.

You start with a plucky young girl. It's the author's job to make sure this young girl is likable enough to hook a reader. She needs to be pretty enough, or brave enough, or smart enough, or sad enough, or everything enough that it is believable that someone would fall for her, and then once that's proven, then the hot (sometimes immortal) love interest shows up.

And when you read a lot of these books over and over and over, that equation becomes ingrained into your head, and you start to think it's true.

If you are good enough then love happens, and if love hasn't happened, then you aren't good enough.

With my Theatre background, part of the training you get is knowing what roles you can believably play. I knew I could play goofy, or funny. I could play creepy or ancient or smart, but I believed, and I was taught by cast list after cast list, that I couldn't play a love interest.

It's sad when you don't believe you are good enough to be the heroine of your own life.

I had a list of reasons why the boys didn't like me. I thought I was too heavy, so I lost weight. I had bad hair, so I invested time and money in a hair straightener. I got a job, and started buying clothes from non thrift stores. I stopped singing in the halls, stopped laughing too loud at inappropriate jokes, I stopped doing everything I knew was wrong with me, but nothing really changed as far as boys went, mostly because I was so sad, and empty, and just a cardboard character of someone I thought I was supposed to be. And then when they did like me, I hated them, because they liked a lie, and not me. I hated the fact that I wasn't myself and that they liked me that way.

And then one day, Halloween my second year of college, I decided to dress up as a Family Studies major. I borrowed my roommates clothes, I straightened my hair, and I told every person I saw that I was a Family Studies major because I thought it was hilarious, and then I got asked out by three different guys and I said screw you, I am who I am.

That was the day I stopped straightening my hair. That was the day I stopped walking around in costume, and that was the day I decided to stop letting what boys think of me determine my worth.

That was the day I decided that my life was enough.

But I had spent so long hating parts of me that were authentic, and liking parts of me that weren't. I had spent so long listening to other people's opinions on life, and not enough determining my own. I wanted to be my authentic self, but I had no clue what that even was.

I could give you ten pages about the characters I was playing, but I couldn't give you a paragraph about who I was.

And so, my second year of college, while my roommates all went on dates, I put boys far from my mind, and I focused on me, on what my life would look like, and what would be enough for me.

I could have chosen anything. I had the freedom that comes from distance and age. I could see a thousand paths in front of me. But I chose one thing, and everything else fell into line.

When I learned who I was, and Whose I was, I was set free of enough. I knew I was a character created by a loving God, and this Author and Finisher (editor) of my faith had made me to be me. He had set a path and a story just for me, and I was just starting it. I thought the next step on that path was serving a mission for my church, and although I was scared to leave everything I'd known, I was so excited to set this self I'd chosen into stone, and share this knowledge that had set me free.

So I prepared to serve my mission. I bought the clothes, (costumes are important) I got the shots (needles are evil, evil, little things), and I studied the books and scriptures that I would need to learn. I knew was preparing myself for something. All I had to do was wait for my twenty-first birthday.

On my twentieth birthday, I was home for the summer. I was working four jobs at the time, earning the money I'd need to pay for rent and food for the entire year, (The scholarship I'd earned payed my tuition, high five fifteen year-old self.), but I had my birthday off.

That night there was the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen in my life. These orange and pink streaks filled the whole sky, and I wasn't content to stay indoors. I wanted to see the whole of it. So I walked out of my parent's house and into the Junior High School field that was just behind it, singing the hymn For The Beauty of The Earth at the top of my lungs as I went. I sat down on the wet grass and watched that sunset fade and the star pop out, and I felt so content with being alone on this beautiful earth. I felt so grateful for my life.

I stopped singing because I only knew the words to the first verse, but I stayed out there for at least a half an hour. I just breathed in my life, and the stillness of the night settling. Maybe it was the melancholy of spending a birthday alone, not waiting for someone, just being someone, but I changed from feeling proud that I was alone, to aware and sad that I was alone.

I missed someone, and I didn't know who. It was the person I would dance with to Louis Armstrong's greatest hits when I was alone in my dorm room. It was the person I closed my eyes and pretended I was resting my head on their shoulder when I was leaning back on my parent's couch. It was the person I was singing to.

I missed feeling like I was home. And I was so tired of being homeless.

I didn't know it, but I was finally ready to fall in love.

And just like a hero in a story, once I'd proved that I was enough for the only reader of my life (me), my handsome love interest appeared.

Not two days after my twentieth birthday, Darren flew home from his mission.



 *Now this isn't to say I don't still struggle with feeling like I was enough. When I was engaged, I showed one of my sort of friends my ring, and she looked me up and down in confusion. I could basically read her thoughts, because we thought it at the same time. She was much prettier than I was. She was much more enough than I was. And there was this "truth" that the prettiest ones go first. And that's crap. Love happens when love happens. You fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. That has nothing to do with pretty.

** Nothing wrong with a Family Studies major. When I had my bridal shower I unwrapped all these presents, and I had no idea, (Toilet bowl cleaner? What?! I just fell in love, how does that mean I need to start cleaning toilets?) that I'd be expected to cook (Wait? Cook books, and Pyrex dishes?! I thought this was a love thing. I thought I could be anything I wanted to be. When did falling in love mean I had to clean toilets and make casseroles?) and I really wished that I had taken a few classes, especially on child raising, because I really flounder some days.

But I know where to look when I'm feeling like I'm not enough.

Little Ceaser's.

Meeting my Husband For The First Time -- My Real Life Love Story -- Part Three

I met Darren for the first time in September of my Sophomore year. The first time I ever noticed him, he was on stage in rehearsal for my High School's musical, The Music Man. He had a one line solo, "I got a box of maple sugar on my birthday," and he sang it in the goofiest voice you've ever heard, AND he made his own prop. A box with the words... maple sugar... drawn across it, and it was wrapped with a bow. It take commitment to be that kind of goofy when you have only one line, and dang if he wasn't adorable.  If there was a cuteness scale of High School boys, Darren would beat everyone up with that scale.

It's possible that I am slightly biased, but I don't think so.

Here's proof. This is Darren back when I met him for the first time.

Adorable.

Yes, that's not actually Darren. But it's close. Really really close. Like so close, I don't think it'd be cheating if I once had a dream about Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Which never happened.

Blink. Blink.

Ahem. I got off track somehow. The important information, is that DARREN WAS CUTENESS personified.

All my friends thought so too.

Here's the sucky part about my love story. I almost missed it.

My very best friend in the entire galaxy liked him first. She was standing next to me that first time I heard Darren sing out that solo. We both looked at each other, she raised her eyebrows first, and called dibs.

In High School, I was the goofy girl with bad hair and thrift store clothes who belted out show tunes as I walked down the halls. Emily was the tall blonde who had her arm in the crook of mine and who kept me on tune. (Ish.) She sang the same song as I did. It made sense that we'd like the same guy.

I met Emily in Junior High. We bonded over MASH games and skipping class to hang out in practice rooms to talk about boys. Darren was her first boyfriend, but more than that, he was the first boy who liked her back, and I adored their relationship. Number one fan. Darren liking Emily meant someday a cute boy would like me. I wanted every detail, and Emily was happy to tell me. I kind of lived vicariously through their relationship, which is super weird to think about now.

 In a series of strange coincidences, I had the privilege of knowing every girl my husband dated. And it WAS a privilege, because every girl he choose to date made me respect him more. He chose Girls of Quality, and more than that, he chose Girls of Qualities That Most Guys Don't See.

He dated four of my friends in total, and I heard a lot of stories from all four of them. And the more times I heard about people kissing Darren, or dating Darren, or liking Darren, the lower on my list he went, despite the fact that he was the most adorable teenage boy to walk the planet.

To me, he was one of the few boys I thought of as just a friend.

For a couple of weeks in my junior year, he used to drive Emily and I home from play practice. I'd always sit in the passenger seat while she would sit behind Darren, so she could have her hands wrapped around him the whole time.  In Emily's defense, this was her very first boyfriend and Darren was delightfully adorable. Because of the route we lived on, he'd drop her off first and I'd sit in the car and read my script while they said goodbye.  After a few minutes, Darren would get back in the car and he'd drive me to my house. Along the way we'd have these little conversations. I don't remember exactly what we talked about, but I do remember once, while his car idled in my driveway, Darren said something so surprisingly kind and mature I thought to myself, Darren is such a good guy. He's going to make someone really happy.

He does.

My very first date ever, I went with my husband and his girlfriend Emily. My date was a boy named Jeremy. We went to a girl's choice dance in like NOVEMBER... Which meant I waited for...calculating, a long time (still not good at math) after my sixteenth birthday for that first date, and I had to ask him.

After that though, dating became a thing I did. Not a thing I was good at, mind you, but still it was a thing that I did. It was fun.

A few months after that date, Darren and Emily broke up, which shocked my whole world. Emily and I were back to walking home. We were back to liking boys who didn't like us back. In a lot of ways we were back to who we were in Junior High, except that Emily had crossed a threshold that I hadn't even seen yet, and while we were still walking with our arms crooked together, she seemed so much further ahead than me. If I hadn't held her arm in mine, I felt like she would disappear.

Somewhere along the way I put my arm down to my side.

Darren became a background person in my life. Because of loyalty to Emily, I couldn't really be friends with him anymore, and I couldn't ever date him. Not ever.

EVER.

So he became a cute boy our other friends dated and thought about, and I didn't think about at all.

Not for years.