Monday, March 29, 2010

You Don't Know Me

Exactly one year ago, I got my first speeding ticket.

After getting the speeding ticket, I was absolutely distraught.  I was convinced that meant my parents weren't going to let me take my car to college, and I'd never gotten one before (being scolded is a very shaming thing for me), and I didn't really know how to handle it.  I thought I was going to have to go to court, in front of a jury!  In my defense, on the paper, it had a "court date."

When we got back to my house, Jon and I ended up alone, sitting on my dad's tailgate.  He made me lean on him so he could put his arm around me and rub my back to soothe me.  He calmed me down, told me it wasn't that big of a deal, and that my parents were sure to understand.  He hugged me, and said a prayer with me.  When I stopped hyperventilating, he jumped off the end of the gate and held out a hand to me.  "Give me your keys," he said, with one of his I'm-doing-something-sly-and-sweet smiles that I eventually got to know very well.

"Why, what are you doing?" I asked, pulling them from my pocket and handing them over.

I acted like I was going to hop off too, but he put a finger up and said, "No, no!  You... stay there.  Yeah.  Stay there."  Then, he took my keys from me, unlocked my car, and put the key in so the CD player would play.  He switched the CD, then rolled my windows down.  "May I have this dance?" he said quietly, and held my hand as I slid off the tailgate.

I laughed, and let him pull me to the part of the driveway in-between my dad's truck, my car, and the garage.  It wasn't a huge space, but it was just big enough for slow dancing.  We danced awhile, and I looked up at him and blushed a lot.  I eventually laid my head on his chest, because I was exhausted from crying, and I was tired of blushing so much.  The song changed, and we both laughed.  The song "You Don't Know Me" by Michael Buble was next... the song we danced to together for the first time, in a parking lot, a few weeks previous.  He looked at me for a long time, and bit his bottom lip.

"So... you remember what we talked about?"

I smiled.  "Yes."  I remembered perfectly well the conversation we'd had a couple of weeks before that about kissing.  It had been a very awkward, but very amusing conversation at the same time.  How many couples actually talked about it before they did it?  It was something that turned out to be very characteristically "us"...  We talked about everything.  Even the awkward stuff.

"I'm... I think I'm gonna go for it.  Is that okay?" he said, blushing a little.

I laughed out loud.  "Yes.  Yes, that's definitely okay."

His nervousness was really flattering... and also unexpected.  I laughed again.  He was twenty, and I was seventeen...  Shouldn't I have been the nervous one?

Two weeks after that was General Conference.  We went together, where he--very hesitantly--put his arm around me for the first time.  Afterward, he told me just how incredibly nervous he had been.  We laughed together, and I told him I'd been just as nervous when I'd reached for his hand.  It was hilarious to us, that those things that are generally supposed to come before the first kiss, made us that jumpy, but it was also... right.  It felt right.

The weeks following were some of the hardest of my life.  I was so conflicted.  I wanted so badly to just be with him, and not worry what anyone else thought, but I had to be careful because of another's feelings.  I didn't want to hurt her.  But, if I'd been honest with myself, I was in love with him the moment I realized that I could completely be myself with him.  He was the first person in the world that I didn't feel like I had to act for, or put on a face, or hide things from.

After the storm blew over, I had the best months of my life.  It was the perfect summer: go to work, drive home to eat, then meet him at the institute, and hang out until my mom called me home.  We did a whole lot of nothing, but it was perfect.  We just talked, went for walks, and did a lot of stargazing.

That's why I'm waiting.

Happy one-year anniversary, Jon. :)

Te amo con todo mi corazon.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

"You've had a full day!"

"You've been busy.  Terrorizin' doctors and nurses, beatin' up teenagers, chasin' after lions...  You've had a full day." --Secondhand Lions

And boy have I had a full day!  So it wasn't a Hub McCann kind of day, but it definitely was full of good things. :)

First, I found the most amazing red dress I've ever worn.

Then, I got to see part of the Cedartree Memorial Pow Wow!  I didn't get any pictures of them dancing, unfortunately, but I did get to see them...  What is it, you ask?  Basically, a bunch of Native Americans in very colorful costumes dancing like maniacs to a menagerie of drum beatings. :)  When I was a kid, I loved Indians so much.  I wanted to be one!  I wanted the long, ebony braids fallind down my back.  I wanted the deerskin dresses and moccasins.  I watched "Pocahontas" a thousand times and read everything about the Pueblos, Navajos, Powhatans, and Anasazi I could get my hands on.

Then, Julie and I added to the day by doing laundry together, making puppy chow (chocolately peanut-buttery powdered sugar goodness), and watched an episode of "House!"  We were halving the recipe for puppy chow, so I kept saying things like, "Okay, so this is a half of the half, so I'll cut this half of the half of the half to make a fourth of the half, which is an eighth."  :D  Did you keep up?

And, of course, to top it all off, Julie, Greta, and I hung out in their room, watching youtube videos and chatting.

What a day! :)

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Too Much Studying!!!

This is how I feel right now... too much studying! It's getting to be that time of the semester when all of my lovely professors have decided to give me some really incredible (and time-consuming) projects. However, I can't really complain because this is what I signed up for, right? Thank heavens for fantastic Elementary Education professors, great friends, chocolate, and the list! ;)