Our Story, Part 2...

This is Part 2 of Our Story.  To get the complete story, read in in order starting with OUR STORY, PART 1.

I've been feeling for a while that I need to write down Dean's and my story for our family history books, for our children and grandchildren to know and understand how their parents/grandparents ended up together.  But I realized that I needed to give some back story because there are some key people along the way that set me on some necessary paths to get to Dean that will help you to understand who I am, how I've changed over the years, and why Dean is the best man I've ever met and how he's perfect for me.  I didn't want to write a short love story "We met at church, dated, married, had a baby 3 years later....", that's too vague for my tastes.  I want my posterity to know WHY I love Dean, and why we go perfectly together.

Our Story, Part 2

I rifled through my closet and managed to find a very unworn shirt and skirt in the back.  I actually put on makeup for the first time in who knows how long because I wasn’t big on wearing makeup, did my hair, and hesitantly headed out the door to go to church all by my newly single lonesome self.  

I walked into the church seconds before the meeting began in the chapel and frantically looked for a seat near the back.  I tried to avoid eye contact with everyone because surely they would see in my eyes that I hadn’t been to church in a couple of years and I was a sinner.  All of a sudden I hear “Michelle!!!!” and I look up and there’s a friend of my older sisters that I hadn’t seen in years standing and waving at me.  She had a smile as bright as the sun, and I smiled and waved back at her and grabbed the closest empty seat I could find to where I was standing at that second because suddenly half of the chapel was staring at me because they wanted to see who had just walked in and was being waved at. 

The opening song was sung and the opening prayer was said.  During that prayer I actually folded my arms, closed my eyes, and I listened.  Oh how I wanted God to heal my heart and make High School Boyfriend realize that breaking up with me was the wrong thing to do and for him to beg to get back together with me. My heart was still aching beyond anything I’d ever known because High School Boyfriend and I were so newly broken up, but something foreign started happening to my heart and my body during that prayer.  It suddenly didn’t hurt as much to breathe, and my heart didn’t feel like a 10 ton weighted stone in my chest, it was more like a 9 ton weighted stone now.  I opened my eyes after “Amen” was said and looked around to see if anyone else was feeling visibly and physically relieved like I was from that prayer.  Nope, must have just been me. 

The meeting progressed on.  I devoured every word that was said and every song that was sung.  Within the course of the first 40 minutes of being in that chapel, my heart finally talked to my head for the first time in a long time and I knew this was where I needed to be. 

Cue the Returned Missionary during my 41^st minute in the chapel.

He was sitting up on the stand during the entire meeting because he was going to be the closing speaker, to give his homecoming talk because he’d only been home from his LDS mission for a couple of weeks.  It’s kind of a custom for returned missionaries to give their homecoming talks a couple of weeks after getting home from their missions, and this just happened to be the Sunday that he was asked to give his homecoming talk. 

I could tell that the speaker before him was getting ready to wrap up their remarks and it would be his turn soon so I really looked at Returned Missionary to take a closer glance and see if I recognized him from anywhere.  Only thing was when I looked at him, he was looking right at me smiling an unmistakable smile and he gave me those flirty eyes and I instantly knew that he was going to ask me out after the meeting.  Great, just great.

Next thing I know he’s speaking to the congregation and smiling at me throughout his talk.  I was blushing and of course thinking how cute he was in my 19 year old head, but then I’d think about how as soon as he talked to me and found out that I’d JUST broken up with High School Boyfriend and hadn’t been to church in years, he’d just move right along.  I was having this inner struggle with myself and him before I even knew his name. 

True to my predictions, Returned Missionary made a beeline for me as soon as the meeting was over, along with the wonderful lady, who would become a dear friend, who waved at me when I walked in and she brought over a whole entourage of people to introduce me to.  The next 2 hours of Sunday School and classes were a blur of meeting many more people, learning that this congregation was like a family, and there was a social function for almost every night of the week and that I was wanted to attend by several different people who wanted to get to know me.  I was the new fresh meat.

And yes, I predicted correctly, Returned Missionary asked me to go out on a date with him that week.

As wonderful as it was to have these instantaneous friends, after I went home that Sunday I couldn’t deny that my heart was telling me that I needed to do a big 180 and get back on the straight and narrow.  I knew I NEEDED to be in that church every Sunday and I needed to start actually LIVING what I was knew I was supposed to.  It’d been too long.  Something in my soul changed that Sunday.  I had a new resolve to be a better and different person.

My Mom’s suggestion to just go to church and see how it went couldn’t have come at a more inspired moment.  High School Boyfriend called me on Monday crying saying that he couldn’t do it.  It hurt too much to be without me and let’s get back together.  I absolutely blindsided him and shattered his world when I said “no.”  Had I not gone to church that Sunday and had that change of heart, I would have said “yes” in a heartbeat.  I wanted to get back together with him, he was all I had known for the past 3 years and he was comfortable, but there was something that had lit a fire in me during that first 40 minutes in church that gave me the strength to hold my ground and say “no” despite his pleas and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  We argued, cried, yelled, tried to rationally talk it out, but ultimately he lost the battle and got depressed because of the rejection. 

I missed him.  High School Boyfriend wasn’t all bad for me, he just wasn’t necessarily good for me.  I had something wonderful in my future that I knew was coming eventually, he just wasn’t in that picture. 

Returned Missionary and I went on a couple of dates and he eventually became Returned Missionary Boyfriend.  We had a good time but there wasn’t a huge bond where our long term futures together were even discussed.  We both knew it wasn’t headed that way, thank heavens.  We were more of time fillers. 

He and I went to lots of church social functions together, and I made some amazing friends whom I’m still friends with today, both guys and girls.  I believe that he was put in my path that Sunday to also help me not go back to High School Boyfriend.  As fickle as most 19 year olds are and heaven knows I was no exception to that rule, I saw that there was a handsome LDS returned missionary who was interested in me, someone who already upheld the ideals that I wanted to work towards having.  Yes please!

I enrolled in a local community college, got a job, and Returned Missionary Boyfriend and I hung out as much as our work and school schedules would allow, and continued living the straight and narrow path like I had resolved to do a couple of months earlier. But we eventually called it what it was and were done dating.  No hard feelings. 

I moved down to go to Utah State University for a change of scenery and to be close to my sisters who lived down there.  I just couldn’t seem to fit in with the Utah Mormons, and I went out on a couple of dates, but definitely no one to write home about.  I didn’t have many friends so I mainly ended up spending time at my sister’s house helping her remodel it when I should have been in class.  I would convince her to write my Psychology papers in exchange for dry walling her newly gutted house.  It was a win win. 

But I eventually decided to move back up to Washington to where I was comfortable.  I had plenty of friends at home and I knew I could mooch off my Mom for as long as I needed.  Man, I’d like to go back and slap 20 year old Michelle for doing that.  But mooch away I did.  I was a social bee for a while and my friends were my morning, noon, and night.  

I went out with a couple guys from church back in Washington, but heck, I can’t even remember some of their names now.  No love connection at all and that was just fine with me. 

I went on being social yet single for a while but one night, one dreadful night, I was bored at home.   

“Hmmmm, maybe I’ll try out one of these LDS Singles chatrooms.”  I want to go back and knock myself upside the head with a 2x4 and scream, “Michelle! MICHELLE!!! DON’T DO IT!! YOU’RE AN IDIOT!!!”   I got in the chatroom and started doing mindless “Where do you live? How old are you? Blah blah blah” chatting.  One guy popped up on the screen.  “I live in Olympia. Where do you live?”  “I live in Sumner.”  We started chatting just he and I for a couple of hours and eventually it was decided that we’d meet up in person in a neutral place.  So like the brilliant 21 year old that I was, I took my young niece and nephew to go see Santa at the mall and had him meet us there.  It wasn’t an instant love connection at all, he was crazy skinny and gangly, had a little bit of a nasaly voice, but again, I was an idiot and could tell he was into me.  I think I was just pretty lonely at the time so I figured that having somebody around who liked me was better than having no one around.  He and I started hanging out a lot and he quickly became Mistake Boyfriend. 

As I got to know him, I found out that Mistake Boyfriend had some skeletons in his closet that he tried to keep tightly locked up, but I eventually found out and it crushed me in ways I won’t even explain.  We had this love/hate relationship and I knew deep down that he and I were COMPLETELY wrong for one another, but again, being the idiotic 21 year old that I was, it was better to have someone than no one.  He hated most of my family and friends who were good people. That should have been red flag #1.  He degraded me emotionally and verbally more times than I can count. Red flag #2.  I started to spiritually stray because my self worth was starting to wane. Red flag #3.  I can honestly look back and declare that he didn’t leave one positive imprint on my life over the tumultuous course of almost a year that we dated on again and off again.  He eventually infiltrated my circle of friends and he was kind enough to turn some of them against me when he and I broke up.  It was great. 

He doesn’t deserve more than the 2 necessary paragraphs to incorporate him into my timeline and to show what a waste of a year I had, but once we were done dating I decided I really needed to do some work on myself.  He had broken me down big time.  I hadn’t completely stopped going to church when I dated Mistake Boyfriend, but I wasn’t going faithfully every week either.  I decided I needed to make that a priority again.  I was purposely single for almost a year after him, got a great job that I loved during that time, bought my first cute little Volkswagen Jetta, and I got an apartment by myself.  Hello independence!  I started to gain more self worth and leaned on the supporting shoulder of an amazing guy friend who I still hold dear to this day. And no, we didn’t date, there was never anything like that between us, he was just honestly one of those guys who is like your brother that you can talk and laugh with.  He was a lifesaver for me at that time and put in my life for a very specific reason.

And then my friend got in a horrible car accident.