My True Love Story

First Letters

Day 2,014ish

Dear Amie,
Here I am writing to you from the MTC, as I am looking at your picture. I haven’t heard from you yet. You’re married already aren’t you? I knew it would happen, but I didn’t think it would be so fast! I keep thinking I only saw you two weeks ago, but I miss you so much already. I just took a picture of me writing to you with your picture at the top. I will send you one.
The MTC is so awesome. I have grown more spiritually in the last few days than I have in the years previous. We have three meals a day and 2 classes a day, the classes lasting 3 hours each. The spirit is in every one of them and I can’t wait until I’m in the mission field and I can feel the spirit that strong 24 hours a day.
I got to lead the singing in a huge meeting and that was awesome.
Everyone here is pretty cool. They all think that I have an accent, and now that they tell me I do, I kind of notice that I really do. Our district leader is from Maryland, and his companion is a Canadian who really thinks I have an accent. I made a good friend here named Elder Landers and he also has a girl writing to him. We really enjoyed eating some OTHER guy’s, girlfriend’s cookies yesterday.
Love, Elder Leonhardt
P.S. I have gained seven pounds already. I’m getting chunky. (yeah, right)

Dear Elder Leonhardt,
You didn’t think I had forgotten you, did you? For one thing, I didn’t even have your address for most of these days! I’m pretty amazing, but I’m not quite good enough to get a letter to you without an address. Now that I have your letter, and that ever important address in the upper left hand corner… here it is: my first official letter.
I went to visit your family the other day and something shocking happened. I had one of those famous “den talks” with your Dad! You know, I always wanted to do that… just once--- never again! :) Just kidding. Actually, I think I must be tougher than the rest of the family, I survived it with ease. Maybe he went easy on me because he likes me better than the rest of you. ;) What have you been learning at the MTC about humility? Please share.
I bet you’re wondering what your Dad talked to me about. Well, too bad. These den talks are private business. ;) Just kidding. He asked me what our arrangement was and I told him the whole thing. No commitments. Me dating. Me not writing about me dating. He thought that was wise. He did say, and this part was my personal favorite, that he would “like nothing more than for me to marry into the family”. I promise! He really did say that! Pretty cool, huh? I thought so.
Anyway, that’s quite enough of all this non-mission paraphernalia. Don’t let me distract you from what’s really important right now. I’m amazed at you, and the decision you’ve made to give your mission your all. Knowing you, and the way you excel at the things you set your mind to, you’ll be the best missionary in the whole world- though I’m still glad you aren’t going to Cambodia.
Love, Amie

What I’m NOT saying is that it wasn’t the lack of address that kept me from writing. For heaven’s sake, I should have called his Mom immediately, daily, hourly, until she had heard from him and then gotten the address and written (probably daily and hourly) for whole first week he was in the MTC! Nevermind. That’s an unhealthy exaggeration, but what my letter is NOT saying is that I keep pushing thoughts of Ryan away, still under the mindset of trying to get over him. I’m fighting so hard not to get hurt, that it doesn’t even occur to me that he needs to hear from me. Needs. I’m not used to him needing me. The concept is foreign after the past year. I always knew I’d be great at writing to a missionary… under ideal circumstances, but like Ryan said, I have the memories of him as the dark sorcerer.
I ask around. People tell me that time in the MTC is so much longer than real time. You’ve left your family, said goodbye for two whole years (pretty much) and been thrown out into the real and sometimes cruel world with no promise of going home for a home-cooked meal or for your Mom to do your laundry. This is serious. College makes me melancholy at times and homesick, but home is only about a three hour drive away. There, my parents will envelope me and take care of me and pretty much solve any problems I have. Still, Ryan is stronger than I am. I believe he’s ready to solve his own problems. All I need to do is write to him… and bake some cookies that will make that “OTHER guy’s girlfriend’s cookies” taste like dirt clods by comparison. I’m on it.

I Can Totally Handle a Challenge! (Please Don't Give Me any More)

If nothing else, read the story at the very end. It will make your day a little better. :)

My Mom moved away from my home town (where she had been living without any family, since my Dad passed away almost 8 months ago). She moved to my neighborhood. She is tending the kids overnight tonight while Ryan and I go out for his birthday. My kids can get off at a little earlier bus stop any day after school and go to her house for milk and cookies (which she keeps on hand even though she doesn’t eat sugar). When she and I go shopping together, an hour can disappear like a minute… it’s almost creepy. I’m realizing how many traits, that I kind of like about me, that I got from her.

There have only been two major things to adjust to.
When Mom lived in Ferron there were large portions of the day when I could push away the idea that my Dad wasn’t there with her anymore. I could go about my busy routine, and almost pretend that things were normal everywhere else in the world. With her here, there isn’t a minute when I don’t have to open my eyes to the realization that Dad is someone we miss now. It’s okay though. It seems like there’s a fine line between going on with life, and forgetting people. I think I’m closer to the good balance between the two now.
My Dad’s last words and gestures were a repeated request that we take care of Mom. Really. Like… even cooler and more heroic than you see in the movies. He was a selfless man, and so many other things. Ryan says, “I can’t talk about your Dad to people who didn’t know him. It’s too frustrating that they could never understand how amazing he was.”
The adjustment comes in knowing what I can do and should do to help Mom. I see Dad asking us to take care of Mom in my mind every day. I don’t want to disappoint him. Mom is still my Mom though, and ends up helping me more than I feel that I’m helping her. We have almost a daily, good spirited argument about who should pay for things or who owes whom dinner. “You helped me paint… yeah, but you watched the kids… You’ve been having me over too often for dinner… Mom, I cook for an army and you eat like a bird…” etc. Many a cashier has had to witness these debates.

Mom in front of the live orchestra, her favorite part about the play we went to. We sat on the front row! It was so much fun!


Adjustments are happening, and as always I stand back amazed at how much we can handle. I’d still never choose a challenge, but when a challenge finds me it seems I can manage it. So maybe the next giant challenge I face- Oh please, I’ll still whine like it’s the end of the world, and be no more confident in my ability to handle it than I was with the last one. I will handle it though… I bet. None of them have killed me yet, and I’m only partially insane.

Mom's house before:

Mom's house now. She insisted on having my brothers cut down the "straggly" pine tree on the right, and she pruned the heck out of all of the bushes. You cannot slow that woman down. Looks pretty great, right?
This is her living room before:

Mom likes bright and neutral and warm. So she had to paint over the blue. (I have nothing against blue. My living room is blue, but I like it that Mom is in a place where she can do what she likes with her house.) It's hard to see the color in this picture, but it's actually tan and looks sophisticated and classic and yes... warm.
The men from our church that helped her move in were scratching their heads at all of the manly possessions belonging to this woman who lives alone. They really wondered when they unpacked her blow torch. We all get an occasional chuckle at the ways Dad is still here with us... in our hearts and in Mom's garage. :)

This is Mom's kitchen before. I haven't taken after shots of it yet, but her decorating is looking great!

This is her dining room before. We all agree that her best addition to it is the flat screen TV she has hanging on this wall now. :)


This is Mom the day she moved in. She has committed to be positive about this change and she has made a conscious effort. She is brave. So brave to start a new life instead of hiding her head in the sand. She is a great example to her kids and grand kids.

She has all of the little stresses and challenges that life brings. Here a grumpy co-worker, there a pushy salesman. She also has grief. The other day she went to the cemetery, knelt at Dad's graveside and cried. She was there for her parent's 60th wedding anniversary, something she and Dad will never get to celebrate. She was sobbing and pulling up a few small weeds from around the headstone when a little boy about 10 years old rode by on his bike. He asked, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" That really impacted Mom. It really did help her. I think she feels that people are angels on this earth, the hands of God, here to help each other. To that boy's parents I want to say, "You must be doing something right." To the little boy I want to say, "I have a 10 year old daughter... and I'd like you to marry her." ;)

My True Love Story

I deleted my ramblings and "possible excuses" from the top of my last post. Apparently it made things seem like they were going to be a lot worse than they actually were. This was told to me by several very good friends and I took it as a compliment! Always better to be less inappropriate than expected! :) Also, apparently, (as with absolutely everything in my life) my most riske writing is not as big of a deal as I make it. Teehee. Still, I'm thrilled to present this week's story with absolutely no innuendo whatsoever so that I don't have to feel nervous all day. Thank you all for your comments! They mean SO much to me. Thanks for even just visiting and reading, I can see my counter go up about 100 visits every post and it just thrills me, so thank you!

The Reckoning

Day 1,980

“Guess what? I got my call!”
“You did? Oh my goodness!”
“Yeah! I’m going to Northern California! The Roseville, California Mission.”
“California? You’re kidding me! I actually have some idea where that is!”
Ryan laughs on the other end of the line. “My letters will only take a few days to get to you,” he says.
“That is a really good thing. A really, really good thing.” I smile, sink onto a couch and let the phone slump against my shoulder.
“I’m gonna walk to the library and look up all of the information on Northern California that I can find. You wanna come?” He asks.
“Sure. That sounds great. Come and get me!”
When I hang up the phone, I look around my living room. The sun is lighting and warming the room, fall colors and smells are filling me up like a creamy soup. Ryan is going on a mission to California and one of the first people he told about it was me. This is exactly how it was supposed to be from the moment we got locked in the church closet together in the ninth grade. From the moment we danced together in the snow under the streetlight.
But I don’t believe it.
We walk to the library, the cool breeze, the gently falling leaves, the comfortingly empty streets still adding to my surreal feeling. Ryan is glowing and bouncing with his contagious enthusiasm, so excited about his call, so ready to go anywhere he’s asked. He’s suddenly so ready to stop kissing girls and shrugging off school with his untouchable friends, and strutting around thinking of nobody but himself.
But I don’t believe it.
We go into the quaint, small town library, one of my favorite little getaways, now and forever. We find books and maps and information. I’m encouraging and happy for him. He’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time, and loves sharing it with me.
But I don’t believe it.
On the walk home, he tells me, “I’ve been reading all of these articles and talks about how to be a good missionary. My favorite one is called ‘Total Faith and Dedication’. It’s about obeying every rule, being totally focused and-“
I can’t take it anymore! The supreme happiness and goodness! The recent saying and doing all of the right things! It’s making it so hard to keep hating him and holding a grudge against him.
“Don’t.” I say, interrupting. My feet stop on the gravel pavement of the small, quiet road. “Don’t do that. Don’t try telling me that happily ever after is possible. Not now. Not after everything you’ve done.”
I start walking again, briskly. Leave him standing there in a bit of stunned silence, before his longer footsteps bring him back to my side.
I’m still ranting. “I dreamed of this day! I’ve always wanted it, and you’ve always known I have! But then you dashed that dream on the lips of a hundred other girls. You’ve dated my best friends! You were cocky and heartless and I vowed you wouldn’t be able to do this! Just change in the nick of time? Suddenly it’s time to serve a mission and you’re just ready to go be the best missionary the world has ever seen? It isn’t fair.”
“Geez, Amie. You make it sound like I transformed into a dark sorcerer over the last year.”
“Yeah… and what would be missing from that scenario? The deceptive, hypnotic spells or the undiluted evil seething from you?” I ask.
“I was an arrogant high school kid, which I suppose could easily be mistaken for a dark sorcerer, but I didn’t do anything that’s keeping me from serving a mission, Amie. I did some bad things; I avoided a lot of worse things. A lot of worse things. And I’m sorry I hurt you, because I kissed a lot of girls… but you’re the only girl I want to keep on kissing.”
He steps in front of me now, forcing me to stop walking. He looks at me, takes both of my hands in both of his.
“I’m just scared,” I say. “This is too good to be true.”
“It’s not too good to be true. Not when you have all of these terrible memories of me as the dark sorcerer,” he says, winking. “It’s just good enough to be true." He faces forward again, keeping one of my hands so that he can hold it as he walks. "Besides… you really think I believe in happily ever after? I still think I’m going to come home to Amie Gee Smith, happily married and three months pregnant.”
I shake my head, still melancholy and not so much as smiling at his conjecture about my future. “I’d wonder. If I got married while you were gone, I’d always wonder.”
“Nah. You don’t have to feel that way. We’ll always be friends. One day, we’ll go out on a double date. You and your husband, me and my wife.”
“That sounds wretched.”
“You’ll be jealous of course… because my kids will be better at basketball than your kids.”
He’s right. Probably about his kids being better at basketball than my kids, and definitely about the jealousy. Sitting across the table from a happily married Ryan and his wife is less believable than a fairy tale. I’ll write to him on his mission, and take my chances.

My True Love Story

He’ll Be Somewhere in the World

Day 1,972ish

I’m travelling home from college, but I’m not really behind the steering wheel of my car. Really I’m travelling through the years of my life. Most of the roads have nothing but golden fields on both sides, and few other cars to distract me so there’s nothing but time for quiet contemplation, for my life’s soundtrack to pour out of the speakers, for questions about what the future holds.
My mind flashes back to a week ago, to a conversation that could change the past and the future. It was a conversation bigger than, “Who was that guy you were with?” Bigger than “Will you write to me?” Bigger than “Can you forgive me?”

It’s another weekend of shuffling around dates with two boys back home. I spend a sunny Saturday with Ryan, still amazed at how his apparent sincerity is holding up. In the back of my mind, I keep waiting for him to blow me off for some other girl. I steel myself against it, making sure the walls are strong enough that it won’t hurt much if he does it.
“Aim, there’s something I need to tell you about.”
“Okay.”
His voice has an anxious quality to it. It’s different than I’ve ever heard from him. I can’t quite predict what’s coming, but my caution meter is in the red zone.
“You know how when you’re getting your mission papers ready, you have to go in for a physical?”
“Yes…”
“Well… they found something unusual when I went in for mine. There was an abnormality and there’s… well, there’s a possibility that it could be cancer.”
This is not what I expected. This isn’t even in the realm of anything I could’ve predicted. Ryan’s too strong for fear, too untouchable for sickness. My eyes grow small, the world grows too big in an instant, and my heart grows tight in my chest.
“Don’t worry! It’s gonna be just fine. It’s in a place where they can operate. There’s a surgery scheduled and uh, they’re just gonna get rid of it.”
“Get rid of it? But they don’t know that it’s cancer?”
“No, they can’t really know until they remove it and test it.”
“Ryan…”
“I don’t see any way around explaining it to you. I mean, you need to know, but it’s kind of a forbidden topic.” He sucks in a breath, an almost embarrassed breath, and I find I’m blushing a little and don’t know why.
He says, “They suspect… testicular cancer. Do you know what I mean?”
“Oh man. In my family we don’t even say the word ‘cancer’. We call it ‘the C-word’ when we’re forced to talk about it at all, and now here we are putting the C-word and the T-word together,” I force out a quiet, nervous laugh.
“I know that this is awkward,” he says. “I know that we don’t normally discuss anatomy and you may not be familiar with my unmentionables, but… they’re pretty familiar with you.” Okay. Now he’s being shocking and funny and now I really am blushing.
“Oh! Ryan. Don’t deflect right now. Please do not deflect right now! I’m worried about you!”
“I know. That’s why I’m deflecting,” he says with a confident smile.
“What does- Is- is your family okay with all of this?” I ask.
He’s quiet too long before he says, “Yeah, they’re fine. The doctors are gonna take care of this.”

I pressed for more information after that. I was able to coax him into admitting that his family is worried. That his Mom has shed some tears. Moms can’t avoid tears when they think of their babies and the C-word. Families can’t avoid falling to their knees and sending up desperate and fervent pleas when they think of their loved ones and the C-word.
I’ve been sending up some careful requests since then, myself. Ryan has been the subject of my prayers for a long time. Somewhere around 1,972ish days. First I was a young, foolish girl, trying to get some sort of reassurance that he was my future husband. Then I was a heartbroken girl, pleading that I could get through one day and then the next. And then of course, there was a time when I bitterly forced myself to pray for my enemies, to find some forgiveness for the boy who spitefully used me and persecuted me. A little dramatic, but totally the way I felt. Now, no sooner have we come to a tenuous truce, a cautious understanding, than I’m on my knees again, pleading for his health, for his safety, for his life.
It’s almost dark when I pull into home’s driveway. I go inside and greet my parents, call Ryan to tell him I’m here.
“I’ll walk over and meet you,” he says. The plan is for us to watch a movie at his house tonight.
I don’t ask about the surgery yet. It took place a couple of days ago and I still don’t know the outcome. That’s how distant I’m still keeping things between us. I’m torn between being this supportive person that, maybe, he needs, and being this jaded girl that doesn’t plan on ever getting hurt again.
I catch up with my parents for a few more minutes and then tell them goodbye and head out to meet Ryan. I get to the front lawn when I see his dark figure, drawn up straight, but limping just a bit as he nears. The supportive person that, maybe, he needs comes out in me and I run up to him and throw my arms around him. He stiffens in my embrace and I pull away to find an almost hidden grimace of pain at the corner of his mouth, followed by an attempt at an appreciative smile.
“Ryan,” I breathe, my concern stealing my voice away, “You’re in a lot of pain.”
“Nah. Not too much.”
He turns for us to start walking back to his house, but now I can really see how carefully he’s walking.
“Are you even supposed to be out of bed?” I ask.
“I wanted to walk over here and meet you,” he says.
“That didn’t answer my question,” I say, leaning toward his waist and wrapping my arm around it for support. The pain must be really bad because he accepts the help by wrapping an arm around my shoulder and leaning some of his weight on me as he walks.
I’m more afraid now than I’ve been since I heard about the possibility that he might have cancer. Now I see that he’s masterful at hiding things to protect the people he cares about from worry. Now I see that sometimes it’s so bad that he can’t hide it. Now I see that he can be vulnerable.
So as we walk carefully down the lamp lit street, I start pelting him with anxious questions. “How did the surgery go? Did everything go as it should?”
I see anger darken his eyes as he practically spits out the words, “Oh yeah, the surgery went great if worthless surgeries are the goal of the medical world.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they found out that it wasn’t cancer, and I’m going through all of this for nothing.”
I balance my relief with sympathy and I cast my next words out to him the way he casts out the line when he’s fly fishing. “Isn’t it a blessing that it wasn’t cancer? That you’re going to be okay? I know I’m really happy to hear it…”
His anger dissipates, leaving him to respond in the right way, but with deflated words. “Yeah, of course. It could be a lot worse. My family is extremely relieved that it wasn’t cancer.”
I smile. “I bet your Mom has been pampering the heck out of you.”
That coaxes a genuine smile from him in response. “Almost enough to make it worth it,” he says. “She cooks me anything that sounds good, I have a supply of my favorite candy, and she has a cushy bed all made up for me on the family room floor in front of the TV. Right now it’s really calling my name.”
“Well then let’s get you back to it,” I say, helping him up the stairs of his front porch.
Once we have him leaned back against a plethora of overstuffed pillows and covered in soft, colorful quilts, hand quilted with lots of love by his Mom, I cuddle in next to him and we start the movie.
I’m not watching it though. I’m sneaking looks at him, still so shocked that any of this is happening. I realize that even when I was trying hard to forget all about Ryan, it was still so good knowing that he was somewhere out there in the world. That he was out there making people laugh, delivering the perfect line, being enthusiastic about a football game, feeling passionate about a book, believing in himself like nobody else I know can do. I’m realizing how empty the world would be if he left it. If we don’t end up together, if we marry other people, if he spends the next two years in… in… Cambodia for crying out loud- at least I get to know that he’s out there somewhere making this world a brighter place.
He looks over at me then. “If you keep looking at me like that, your promise to green lid guy is going the way of my recent cancer scare,” he says.
I giggle. “I don’t have any more promises to keep,” I say, “The next two years are going to be absolutely promise free.”
It’s abrupt the way he turns his face toward me and his expression holds a little bit of a question and a lot of a purpose. I look back at him. “I talked to him,” I say. “We’re still seeing each other, but no more promises. I can’t do the next two years with the pressure of promises.”
Then Ryan’s hand is at the back of my head, his lips are pressing against mine, and the world is turning into a brighter place indeed.
The kiss is something new. It’s got a drop of familiarity, but it’s got loads of new excitement, new possibilities, fear and thrill and passion and caution and restraint. Restraint. Ryan pulls back, blinking the heat out of his eyes and taking a deep breath. He looks at me and nods, like his mind is listing reasons to end the kiss right there. Then he deflects one last time. “Well, my unmentionables still recognize you, so I guess the doctors didn’t ruin me completely.”
I gasp, and my cheeks heat up like a furnace. I smack him in the shoulder and he laughs.
“Hey!” he says, “Be careful! I’m delicate!”
“Please, you haven’t been delicate a day in your life,” I laugh, and after that, it’s safest if I stop watching him and watch the movie instead.

My True Love Story

Fishing

Day 1,958ish

The very next weekend, I find myself on that date with Ryan. He packs a picnic lunch, picks me up at my door, and drives in the direction of the mountains. We pass fields of wildflowers and forests of dense pine trees as the road gets thinner and rockier, but I hardly notice the view. He’s asking me questions and listening with genuine interest, his blue eyes alight when he sneaks a glance at me from the driver’s seat, the corner of his mouth turned up in amusement at what I’m saying.
We stop at a stream and I watch him cast a fishing line in and reel it back, slowly. The fish don’t seem to be fooled this morning. There’s a difference between bait and the real thing. I stand further back on the bank and watch. He turns often to get a look at me and send me a smile. There’s a softness around his eyes that hasn’t been there for a long time. It lands on me as gently as glistening wings would land on the surface of the water, sending a gentle ripple over my surface, but not alerting my insides to any danger.
After a few attempts with no bites, he shakes his head and laughs. He shows no frustration over the failed fly fishing, it isn’t the real reason he’s here.
He leads me back to the truck, and takes me to a glassy lake that looks like the sky came down to the ground for the day so that we could sit beside it. He spreads a blanket on the bank and we eat sandwiches and drink sodas. He casts another line into the water and props the pole up on a rock. I walk along the field beside the lake and gather wildflowers of purple and yellow and bright orange. I sit on the blanket, braiding long stems and weaving the flowers into them. I form them into a circle and place them on top of my head, like a halo.
“What do you think,” I say; laughter about to bubble up from underneath my smile, because I’m sure my hair accessory doesn’t look anything like the fair maidens’ from the story books.
“You look pretty enough to make me sneeze,” Ryan says.
I pretend to be offended, grab an extra bloom of bright orange Indian paintbrush and tickle him under the nose with it before he can stop me. He grabs my wrist, laughing, and we scuffle around a little. My laughter dies off and I grow still when I notice he’s frozen over me, pinning one of my wrists to the blanket and looking into my eyes with that same patient, gentle, un-alarming look. I grow stiff, my face closed off. He good-naturedly releases my arm and rolls into a sitting position. I sit up too, my shoulder just brushing his, and make an awkward attempt at explaining myself.
“I’m sorry… I,” I take a deep breath. What if he wasn’t even going to kiss me? And how weird is it to apologize out loud for not letting someone kiss you? And how quadruple weird is it to apologize and explain the reason when the reason you have is the reason I happen to have? Nevertheless, I’ve started the sentence and so I plow forward. “I… promised him that I wouldn’t kiss you.” We both know I’m referring to green lid guy.
Ryan sputters and chokes a little like he’s been dunked into the cold lake unexpectedly. “You pr- you promised him? Him?”
I rush into more explanations. “I’ve been seeing him for awhile, and he’s never done anything to hurt me.”
“That doesn’t make him good enough for you.”
“Whoa. That’s harsh. What better criterion is there than he’s never hurt me?”
“Plenty.” He tosses his head down and away for a second, and then relaxes his body, leans back on an elbow, seeming to calm himself. “Amie, I’m fine with not kissing you. Really. I’m having a great time just being with you, but someone ‘not hurting you’ is not a qualifier for staying in a relationship with them.”
“Convenient opinion coming from the guy who has hurt me repeatedly,” I say.
“You need somebody who challenges you, who respects your opinion but isn’t afraid to disagree with it. You need somebody who can tell you when you’re acting crazy and who is confident enough to take it when you tell him he’s being an idiot.”
Those things sound pretty good to me, but so does not ever being hurt… or not having to forgive and learn to trust again. “Well,” I say, “I guess that’s what the next two years are for. I’ve got awhile to figure out what qualities I really need in a person.”
“So you will write to me? You didn’t promise anyone that you wouldn’t?” He smiles a teasing smile and looks at me from the corner of his eyes.
“Yes, I’ll write to you. I really want to write to you, but listen- I’m not making any promises. We need to have an understanding that I’ll be dating people, having relationships, whatever I feel like doing as if you weren’t even there. I have to figure out what’s right for me.”
“Yeah, I get that. I think it’s a good idea, but uh- I think it’s best if you don’t write to me about the dating part of your life in those letters. I think… it would be a distraction to read about it.”
I’m more than happy to agree to this addendum. I don’t want to pour details of my dates with other guys into my letters to Ryan. “Okay,” I say, “So I don’t have to feel like I’m being dishonest with you. You will know I’m going to date with no promises made to you, and I’ll be doing you a favor by not confessing all about it in my letters.”
“Confessing? There’s a nice, calming word.”
I giggle. “Sorry. Just trying to understand our arrangement.”
“I think we’ve got it mostly figured out,” Ryan says, and then dons a mischievous look. “Maybe we should seal it with a kiss.”
This is Ryan. He doesn’t intend to get me to break my promise, but he doesn’t intend to tuck his tail between his legs like a scolded puppy either. He doesn’t intend to back down.
I won’t outwardly break any promises today, but already it’s disconcerting trying to shuffle boys and feelings. I can promise not to kiss someone. I can promise to write a letter, but my heart can’t make promises about the way it will feel. Someone is going to get hurt, and it makes me jittery and sick when I think of it. Yet if there was ever a time for me to be selfish, it’s now.
Oh fish, swimming deep in the lake, what a dangerous little game you play when you nibble the cheese on the end of a line. I feel a little like you right now, afraid, confused, and unsure of what to try and what to stay away from. Only there’s one big difference. My biggest fear is getting thrown back.

A Little Piece of My Own Personal Heaven

I have a place where I learned about friendship. A place where I had birthday parties. A place where sometimes my bike was a horse and I loved feeling the wind blow through my hair. A place where sometimes my scooter was a car,and the sidewalks around the church were streets that led to imaginary stores and gas stations. A place where a shed was the "Laugh and Play Fun House". A place where the trees were a thousand different mystical worlds.

I have a place where I learned about tradition. Where I participated in track meets and came home with my chest covered in blue and red ribbons. A place where, on the last day of school, kids lined the fence outside and everyone sang together and let go of balloons at the same time.
A place where I wore ruffly dresses to school almost every day of elementary... and people still liked me. :)

I have a place where I learned about boys. Where I first held hands with one, and it was SO scandalous. Where my husband to be was in my sixth grade class, standing just a few feet away from me in our class picture and we never would have guessed that one day he would throw pebbles at my bedroom window, we would go on our first date, and he would eventually propose to me, all in the same little town.

I have a place where I could always escape. Always relax. A place where I could always be me. A place where I learned who I am.


I have a place where my kids learned country values. They fed neighbors' horses, they waded in dirty water, they picked wild flowers for GG and found deer tracks with Grandpa. They played on the same playground that I played on in elementary school. They ran around the school where I went to Junior High.

I have a place where half an hour's drive can take you to deserts where indians painted their art, where we "hung out" around bon-fires as teenagers, where rock formations whisper of a creator and remnants of people who came before whisper of the things important enough to pass down.

I have a place where half an hour's drive in the other direction can take you to lakes like mirrors with heaven's reflection in them. To mountains where there aren't designated camping spots with man-made everything, but where there are little stolen places to build your own fire pit and tuck yourself in under a million stars.
I left Ferron without an official goodbye. We did all of the same, wonderful things. I told Mom that I wouldn't think about how this could be the last time. As I pulled out of town, I stopped and filled a cup with mulberries. I've been eating them straight off of Ferron's trees since kindergarten. I ate them all of the way to Price, not watching too carefully for bugs or leaves. I tasted their sweet juice on my tongue, I crunched their tiny seeds in my teeth, I watched as they turned my fingers purple and that was my quiet, happy, delicious goodbye to Ferron.

I have a place that holds my first and last memories of my Dad... and so many other memories too. Turns out, that place isn't in Ferron. It's right here in my heart and always will be.

My True Love Story

It Involves Pen and Paper

Day 1,951ish

It’s funny how I’m not afraid. Ryan had such a terrifying power over me when we were in school. I felt real fear then. He had the ability to hurt me, to wrap his hand around my heart and squeeze until I doubled over and couldn’t breathe. I don’t feel that vulnerability as I walk to his house a few minutes before six o’clock. I don’t feel a docile calm either. I feel a surrounding force field of reassuring strength, with just enough anticipation humming inside it.
He greets me at the door, having let go of the anger I had heard earlier on the phone. We make meaningless small talk as he leads me through his house to the deck built onto the back. The wood is painted dark brown, built up to six feet off of the ground, with a quaint, matching awning above our heads. Sometimes Ryan would spend the night in a sleeping bag out here in the summertime, and I would come over to whisper bedtime stories and “I love you”s before he fell asleep. Another hundred memories are a part of the backdrop we can view from here, amid the lush landscape and colorful blossoms in his backyard.
He offers me a patio chair, almost formally, and he sits on another, facing me.
“So. Who was the guy?” he asks.
“Wwwhhhhhat guy?”
“Ha! The guy you were making out with on your couch last night.”
“Ah! I was not making out with him!”
“You mean the giant, matriculating him/you blob wasn’t the two of you making out?”
“No. No it was not. We weren’t kissing. I was facing the movie. If we had been kissing how would I have seen you at the window?”
“Well,” his mouth lifts in one corner, and he lowers his voice to a teasing tone. “I, for one, know that you sometimes open your eyes while you’re kissing.”
I break eye contact with him to steal a very important glance at my own hands in my lap, and then around the yard. Anywhere but back at him.
“Remember? Sometimes I’d open my eyes to find you looking at me, then I’d give you a bewildered look and we’d both start laughing. But I liked it… because then I got to see your sparkly eyes.”
His voice has lowered to the tone of an intimate song as he finishes the memory, and he’s leaning forward, focusing on my eyes until they can’t help but rest back on his.
Then I’m sure I see the memory of last night reinsert itself into the forefront of his mind. He sits up straight again, runs a hand through his hair and asks, “So who is he?”
I tell him.
He seems to like the information. “It’s him? Oh man! I thought it was someone you met at college, which, by the way, I’ve predicted all along. But him?” he shakes his head, almost laughing at himself. He grows serious again and says, “I could totally take him.”
So, he’s happy to know who he’s up against. Happy to have inside information. The confidence he gleans from knowing who I’m dating, and the implications of his comment light that familiar fire in me.
“Ryan! Why am I even answering your questions? Yes, I’m dating him. No, we weren’t making out, but we very well could’ve been and the last person I would have to explain myself to, is you! Now, if you don’t mind, it’s my turn to ask the questions around here. Why did you come last night?”
He looks out over the lawn, the trees, out into the setting sun for just a moment and then he looks right into my eyes and leans close again, a commitment to tell it to me straight regardless of the outcome.
“I turned in my mission papers,” he says. “I could get my call anytime now.”
“You’re kidding me! Oh, Ryan that’s--”. I light up with so much surprise and long awaited happiness, but words fail me. It doesn’t matter, because he waves the congratulations and the praise away and continues.
“I came to your house last night because…” his blue eyes bore into me without fear or shame or hesitation, “Because I wanted to ask you to write to me. I wanted to ask you to wait for me.”
Well, it’s clear what’s happened. I’ve entered an alternate universe. My eyes grow as wide as they’ve ever been, and I try to decipher what is clearly a foreign language he’s speaking.
“W-w-wait?” I ask.
“Yeah. You know, wait. Like in no ring on the left hand, red exes on two, twelve month calendars, elevator music gently playing in the background with an operator’s voice breaking in once in awhile to tell you she’s sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience?”
I don’t think I’ve blinked for awhile… and my mouth seems to be interminably hanging open. Ryan waves a hand in front of my face with caution, testing for brain activity.
Now I blink rapidly, lower my eye brows and angle my best hearing ear toward him, silently asking him to repeat himself.
He intentionally raises his voice to a comedic, unsure, higher pitch. “Mayyyybe just the writing. It involves pen, paper, and hopefully an… occasional… encouraging… sentiment?”
His mix of easy confidence and admitted vulnerability disarm me and I allow a reluctant smile to soften my features. It’s a smile that says, “You’re funny, but ohhh the nerve of you.” I stand up, turn my back to him and walk over to lean on the railing of the deck.
“This is so like you,” I say, “to just come strutting back into my life.”
He walks up next to me, watching me, reading me like he could always do so well in the beginning. He places his hand over mine with just the right amount of caution. “I wasn’t aware that I ever left your life,” he says, and the nerve endings in my hand remind me that he never really did.
Then he removes his hand and exhales, blowing the air out over the backyard. “Besides,” he says, “I wouldn’t say I managed to ‘strut’ back. I didn’t strut home from your house last night after seeing you in the window.”
My head whips toward him too quickly, and I sound a little too gratified when I ask, “What did you think when you saw that?”
“Like I said, I thought you met some guy at college already. I thought I’d lost you.” This, he says while looking at me, but then his eyes fall to his feet and he kicks at the wood beneath them. “I gotta admit, when I got back to the solitude of my room, I might have even shed a tear or two- something I swore I’d never do. I was like, ‘What’s this wet stuff coming out of my eyes?’” He elbows me playfully and I smile, without sympathy. He says, “So… yeah, thanks for taking my man card from me.”
I laugh. “Oh you did? You shed a tear or two huh?” I add my casual confession. “Yeah, I’ve shed a couple tears over you too. They now refer to them as Millsite Reservoir.” I call up thoughts of what our local reservoir looks like right now, water bursting over the spillway with the force that could kill.
“I know,” he says, “I know. I did some things that need to be forgiven, but come on. They’re not unforgiveable, are they?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Listen, I’m not going to give you a speech because you know I’m good at speeches and I know you’re good at rebuffing them. Just let me take you out next time you come home…. and… make it soon, would you?”
From the time I saw his silhouette in my window last night until now, there was never even a fraction of a second when I would’ve said no.