In Which My Story was Fundamentally Altered

That night on the twisty slide was the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. The turmoil was engulfing, but it presented itself less often in the form of confusion or anxiety and more in the form of loss. I could see my old dreams sloughing off. I imagined my fingers stretching open and letting go. I conjured the same image over and over, an effort to coax my heart to act in the same manner. I had to let go and ease into an unknown future, one I had not planned out or spent years hoping for, one I could not see in my mind's eye. It was so painful.

The first weekend in April, we took the train to the city for General Conference. We held hands as if we always had- as we walked the sidewalks, sat through meetings, and rode through the dark back to home. We stood alone in my kitchen before he left for the night and when he said goodbye, he kissed my forehead and pulled me in close. I relaxed into him. He was so comfortable and being there was so purely joyful, but when he left, I went to my room and sat on the floor next to my bed as wave after wave of loss washed over me in heaving sobs.

My concept of time after that night is skewed. All I know is this: it was the first week of April, our relationship was still fairly tenuous, I was still hiding my long-distance boyfriend from Patrick as well as Patrick from my long-distance boyfriend, he was still introducing me as his "friend", and I still thought on some days that maybe, just maybe this pseudo-relationship we had would dissolve and I would get back to my original plans for life. By the last week of April, three weeks later, we were talking about marriage. What happened between the first and last week of the month is, quite frankly, a miracle.

I finally worked up the courage to be completely honest and when I was, he so humbly and graciously offered me time and space to sort things out that I knew in that moment that I already had everything figured out. I wanted to be with him. I would give up everything necessary to stay. And so we continued to spend every spare moment together and in one of those moments sometime in mid-April, we were talking about aging and I joked that someday I would have to help him up the stairs to bed and the joke turned suddenly serious.
"You want to marry me, huh?"
"Yes."
And that was pretty much that.

Back to the Story

At first it seemed he was inventing reasons to show up at my apartment: to administer a survey for one of his classes, to prove that my life was empty without Calvin and Hobbes, to drop things off or pick them up. Sometimes he would come to ask me on another date and then we would go out to: hike Y mountain, watch a movie, attend concerts on campus, visit his mission friends. Sometimes he would see me reading in the grass outside my apartment building on his way home from campus and stop to talk.

Eventually though, the excuses had run out and we were unabashedly spending every spare moment together. My grades suffered and I barely noticed. The more time I had with him, the more I thought I wanted.

I realized subconsciously that I was falling in love, but I still wasn't saying it out loud, because though that feeling was lovely and exciting, in reality, this time of falling was incredibly tumultuous. It foiled all of my plans, it changed what I thought I was becoming, it undid the deepest friendship I had ever experienced. I would fully enjoy my time with Patrick and then go home to cry. What I thought would be the most happy time of my life was stained by bitter loss and anxiety. I was constantly worried that I was messing everything up. I felt somewhat like I was losing myself. I suffered this privately. It's hard for me to recount, because I want to color our story brilliantly. It ended brilliantly, but if I am honest in the retelling, I have to paint this part with dark tones. This time was so full of contradictions and inward turmoil. The confusion overwhelmed me in the quiet moments.

Though our days were filled with each other, we did not have a name for our relationship or really any expectations. After the fiasco on our second date, he never again tried to hold my hand or anything further. I remember one time a roommate and her boyfriend invited us to watch a movie with them in my apartment. They were closely cuddled on one couch, holding hands, rubbing backs and the like. Patrick and I were uncomfortably situated on the other couch with a clear bumper of air separating us from even accidental contact. I remember recognizing the stark awkwardness and inwardly chuckling at it. I also accepted date invitations from other guys to prove my apathy (to myself really). If it weren't for the unmistakable feeling floating between us, anyone, including myself, could have believed that we were in a strictly platonic arrangement.

This lasted for about a month. We saw each other almost every day and would spend hours talking and laughing and playing. It was a comfortable friendship and if that's all it ever was everything would have been fine, but it wasn't. Finally one evening, the last week of March, we were laughing and talking at the playground of a nearby elementary school. It was dark, the playground lit dimly orange by a street lamp in the parking lot. We climbed over the equipment, playing some sort of game and somehow both landed in a heap at the bottom of the twisty slide. We kept talking and laughing, staying right there in our tangled heap. When it was time to leave, I realized we were holding hands. It was so lovely that I went home and cried.