Bumped and Bruised Along the Way

September 20, 1992 changed my life forever. I now remember my journey in terms of before 9/20/1992 and after. The transformation of my soul has been an adventure fraught with danger, fear, deepest sadness, love, greatest joy, amazement. Really the journey has to begin in January, 1968. That's when I met HIM. He was eating in the cafeteria in Cannon Center at BYU where we were both 2nd semester freshmen. I spotted him sitting by a guy I knew and decided to join them. My roomie joined us as well. He was TALL! I was tall but had mostly dated shorter guys.
I had spent my few dating years in Dallas and, being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had only started dating when I was 16.
Actually, that isn't really accurate. I was ready to begin dating when I was 16 but didn't have many dates. Oh, there were guys I "loved" but mostly from afar. RGN was one. Oh how I adored him. He was my brother's friend. I would sit with them as they played their guitar's together never speaking to each other or to me. Barely aware that I was even there. I asked RGN to the only girl's choice dance I attended in high school...one of only two dances I went to. He went with me. When I took him home we sat in the car and talked a bit and then he asked "Are we just friends?" "Yes!" I lied. Then he kissed me. Our relationship became friends who kissed...a lot!
I dated Scott. He was a foot shorter than me. We had so much fun together. We laughed all the time. He would stand on the top step and me down one to kiss goodnight. Once as we were walking into a movie theater and he was holding my hand he laughingly said "wouldn't it be funny if people thought you were my big sister?"
I met LKM one summer. He was 6'7". He convinced me that we would be together forever...or until he went home at the end of the summer and hooked up with his old girlfriend again, which he did.
So when I saw HIM I was smitten. My roomie and I argued over who should get to have him (not bothering to consider that he might not be interested!). I insisted it should be me because he was tall and my roomie was short. She could find a million guys taller than her.
I won.
We dated for 3 years. I desperately wanted to get married. He did not.
He left BYU and during a trip I took to visit him a girl showed up at his door. When I questioned him about her he said "Why are you worried? We are getting married." That was as close to a proposal as I ever got. But who cared! We were getting married.
If you know anything about the LDS faith you know our goal is to marry in one of our temples where marriages and families are sealed forever by the power of the Priesthood of God which has been restored to the earth. There you are sealed. Not just wed for this life but joined, sealed, meshed for all time and all eternity. I had always planned on this for me. It was my goal from my youth.
It was not going to happen.
He was not LDS when I met him. He had been baptized into the church while at BYU but the total conversion wasn't there. Not the total "I love the Lord and the Gospel of Jesus Christ and desire to live it at all costs" kind of conversion. After leaving BYU he took up with Nichiren Shoshu a Buddist sect. He chanted for a Porsche, something he would not get in my church.
I was certain that once we were married he would go to church with me and become converted, an idea I had repeatedly been warned against buying into. But I bought!
I loved, adored, worshiped this guy. I gave up my plans, my dreams for what I now wanted, needed more than anything...Him. But it was not his fault. It was my choice though he was very persuasive... he was sweet, soft spoken, kind, smart and oh, so good looking! And he loved me.
The night before we were to be married in his neighbor's home in Manhattan Beach he invited me to attend one of his chanting meetings. I figured that if I wanted him to come to church with me I needed to go with him.
We drove north on the San Diego freeway. In the distance I could see the Los Angeles, LDS, Temple. I tried not to notice as it was making me very uncomfortable.
To my dismay he merged onto the Santa Monica freeway east which paralleled Santa Monica Boulevard, the street the temple was on. I couldn't wait until we passed the temple. It was majestic and beautiful with a sense of invitation and peace. But we didn't pass it. In fact we exited the freeway and began to drive right to the temple! I thought I would burst. He turned up the street that bordered the temple's east side and turned on to a side street perpendicular, an alley almost. He pulled in to a driveway and stopped the car. As he turned off the engine I sat stunned. There was the temple a symbol of all I had hoped for, planned on, dreamed of now a symbol of all I had given up.
"Are you coming?" he asked?

"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it." Viktor Frankl
Until next time...find joy in YOUR journey.