Sunday, November 23, 2014

The Story of Jon and Lindsey: Our First Date

Who knows if Jon and I would have ever ended up together if Rylin Patterson and I hadn't become friends. Winter of 2013 was a hard one for me. I felt like I was failing at everything: failing at being relief society president, failing at being a good roommate, failing at being a good older sister, failing at becoming an English teacher, failing at living healthily, failing at being a good friend, and any other failing out there--I was doing it. I was feeling pretty down and sorry for myself, and for some reason--after a random night of going to see "Wreck It Ralph" at the dollar theater with a group of people in the ward--Rylin decided to be my friend. It was random, and I was a bit confused about who the heck this short and often weird guy was, but I wasn't complaining because suddenly I felt like I had a friend.

One night I was at his house and we started talking about all the awesome things we wanted to do that summer and decided that we should make a summer bucket list. So we did. We had something like 50 items and he titled the top of the page: "The Most Awesome Summer Ever" or something like that. After finals week ended, Rylin and I were sitting down, looking over our list, and trying to figure out how to start off our summer (though technically I guess it was still spring). Earlier, I had admitted that I thought I needed to start going on more dates than I had lately and he was all over the idea of doing a double, so we decided to mark off our Hike the Y and Watch a Sunset goals and to make it a double all in one whammy the following Saturday. Rylin was anxious and excited because he already knew who he wanted to ask. I, however, had no clue who I was going to ask, but figured that with all the new people moving into the apartment complex for summer term, that I could find someone.

I don't remember most of the details from the beginning of the next week, but I do remember that Rylin pestered me just about every single day to see if I'd gotten a date yet--because he had!--and I just had to keep telling him that: "No, Rylin, I haven't. But I'm trying!" Which was true. There was a new guy in the ward that I had thought about asking, and had maybe even tried asking...but due to some circumstances, it just wasn't working.

Wednesday evening came and I still didn't have a date. The time to ask was escaping me, and I still had no clue who to pop the question to. It wasn't that I was afraid to ask a guy out (been there, done that), it was just that I sincerely had started to lose interest in dating and if I was going to go to the effort of asking someone I wanted it to be at least a semi-successful evening.

Enter Jon Paul Self:

-'Bout 6 feet tall
-Lean
-Dirty blonde hair
-Brown/green eyes
-Horribly handsome
-Ubber righteous
-Avid BYU fan
-Frequent ESPN stocker
-Lover of watermelon and doughnuts
-Professional napper
-That guy who likes to make jokes in his prayers
-The man of my dreams

You know the guy.

But I didn't. In fact, I had barely figured out his name. Jon belonged in this conglomeration of roommates that were super close and ran around together having fun all the time. I knew all of their names: Joseph, Eric, Kelly, Kyle, Alex, and Jon...I just didn't exactly know which name went with which face. Except Joseph. I knew him. There were so many times over the past year, since Jon had been in the ward, that I would see him on campus and call him the wrong name. Our gym schedules seemed to be the same, so it usually happened there.

"Hi Eric!"

"Actually, it's Jon."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, hope you're workout's treatin' you great! See ya later!"

Super romantic, right?

As I was saying--Enter the horribly handsome Jon Paul Self: dressed in a white shirt and tie, coming from the parking lot and happening to pass by where I was sitting on a bench, on his way to his apartment.

I thought I'd be friendly.

"Hello, Jon!" I called.

He paused at the sound of my voice and looked up. "Hi, Lindsey." He came over to where I was sitting.

"You look mighty nice," I commented. "Where you coming from?"

"I just came back from the temple."

This was the point where my conscience tugged at me and I remembered that in addition to working on my dating life, I was also trying to work on going to the temple more. So far, I'd gone approximately zero times. My excuse? I didn't have a car, and had been too lazy to walk the mile and a half there thus far.

"The temple?" I repeated. "That's cool! I've been wanting to go to the temple sometime soon, but I don't have a car and haven't been able to find a ride." I forgot to mention the part about me being lazy.

"I'm going again tomorrow and wouldn't mind giving you a ride."

In the excitement of a prospective ride, my mind totally skipped over the oddity of him going to the temple two days in a row and I cheerfully responded with: "A ride would be awesome!"

(The reason Jon was going to the temple two days in a row was because he was just coming from having an interview with the temple president to help with the work that goes on there. He was planning on attending the following day to attend for himself.)

"Okay," he replied. "What time works for you?"

"I get off work at 5...Would 6 be okay?"

"Sure."

And then as he was walking away I remember thinking to myself: Self: this kid doesn't seem like that bad of a guy. Maybe tomorrow when he gives you a ride to the temple, you could see if he's free to go on a date this Saturday at 7:30pm. 

And that's what I did.

And he said that he was free.

And I could finally ward off Rylin's: "Have you gotten a date yet?" with a: "Why yes, Rylin. I have."

But let's be honest here: I wasn't expecting much. I mean, sure Jon was horribly handsome and pleasant to talk to, but he and I had been going to church in the same ward for the past eight months--most of the time with me not even remembering his name--and nothing had happened. Nothing was going to happen. I wasn't even terribly excited for the date.

Saturday, May 4th, 2013 came waltzing around and I found myself sitting in Rylin's kitchen talking with him at 5pm, about two-and-a-half hours before the date. I don't remember what we were talking about but I do remember that Adam Beus--a friend in the ward--dropped by to talk because he was going to join us with a girl at the date too.

"Who are you going with?" he asked me.

I told him "Jon," and his reaction was so strong and immediate that it caught me off guard.

"I approve!" he exclaimed. "Jon is a really good man."

Three hours later, I didn't need Adam telling me that Jon was a really good guy. Two-and-a-half hours later, however, the date had yet to begin and I was not feeling too pumped. I distinctly remember not wanting to go on the date because I was in the middle of having a really good conversation with my friend wherein I was trying to figure-out the woes and troubles associated with thinking that you're failing at everything in life, and the date was interrupting it.

But I hauled myself away and picked Jon up at his place. We met up with Rylin, Adam, and their dates, crammed into Rylin's car (there might not have been enough seat belts...good thing Jon's bum is small!) and made it up to the start of the Y trail head.

And so we started hiking.

And started talking.

And I accidentally started falling for the 6 foot tall, blonde hair, brown/green eyes man whom I'd been calling the wrong name for the past eight months.

No big deal.

Legit picture of Jon and I on our first date sitting at the top of the Y!
I just remember loving the way I felt with Jon. As previously mentioned, I'd had a hard winter. I was feeling down and as a result, had turned into this somewhat fake person in order to feel like I could make myself fit with people without letting them see the mess that was inside. But with Jon, I felt like my old self again. I felt calm and understood. Above all: I felt the Spirit, and it felt awesome. After the first ten minutes, Jon stopped and apologized for talking too much about church stuff and said that his friends always teased him for making everything about church. I picked my jaw off the ground and reattached it to my skull so that I could say that my friends also teased me for making everything about church and that I didn't mind it one little bit and that he definitely shouldn't be apologizing. I remember talking that whole entire date and not once feeling like we struggled to have something to say and that it was just so easy to be with him. We had so much in common and just kept saying: "Me too!" 

The date came to an end and we got back into the car with everyone else. On the drive down, we started talking with the other couples again (everyone had paired off while on the mountain). As we drove, I frowned as I paused and considered the words coming out of my mouth. Back with everyone else, I was being that fake version of myself again. It was such a stark contrast to the way I felt for the two hours just Jon and I had talked. I didn't like it. I wanted what I had when I was with just Jon back. I wanted to be a better person.

I didn't admit it then--even to myself--that I liked him, but deep down I knew I did. I tried to attribute it all to feeling like I once again had hope with my dating life. But within the following weeks--after coming up with reasons for him to take me to the store and to go to the baseball game with him and to talk with him at treat night and to coincidentally be wherever he also happened to be--it was very obvious that all hopes in regard to my dating life were targeted very pointedly at one man, and that I was trying very hard not to hope too much for a bulls eye for fear that I might miss.

Luckily, Jon asked me on a second date.

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Cooking, Spiders, and A Fun Weekend

I have a bad habit when it comes to blogging. It's called "I go forever without writing and then when I finally get around to it I feel like there's so much to say that I'm afraid to say anything. And so I don't." Hence, I have not written anything over the past few months. But it's time to try again!

Looking over the past few months, there's SO much that has happened and so much that I wish I could say, but out of all that's transpired, there are two moments that stand out that I really don't ever want to forget. They're both about Jon, and they both still make me laugh whenever I think of them.

The first has to do with making him lunches. One night for dinner we had soup. I asked him if he'd like some of the leftover soup for his lunch the next day and he said something along the lines of: "Very much yes!" So I took the leftover soup and put it into three different containers. The first was a small one, with one cup of soup in it for me. The second was a container twice the size of mine with at least two times--if not three times--as much soup as was in my container. This one was for Jon's lunch. The last container was two to three times bigger than that container, and it's the one I put all the soup that was leftover into.

The next day came. On my way out to work, I told Jon that his soup for lunch was in a container in the fridge. He acknowledged that he heard, but later that day when I got home, Jon's soup was still in the fridge. Jon wasn't around, so I couldn't ask him about it. I figured that he must have just forgotten to take the soup with him for lunch. It wasn't until I realized that the ginormous container--with all the leftover soup in it--was gone that I realized what happened. He'd taken the wrong container. The one with at least four servings of soup in it! As soon as he came home I asked him about it, and this was his reply:

"I took the wrong container? Oh. Really? Man! Well, I had no problem eating all of it!"

This story serves as a perfect example of how eye-opening it's been for me learning how much food a man can eat in one given day. Which reminds me of another story...

One day we were driving in the car and Jon just randomly started laughing. When I asked him what was up, he said: "I was just thinking about how crazy it would be if what I ate actually affected the way I looked and felt."

Part of me really hopes his metabolism catches up to him latter in life and that he gains 50 pounds. Not really, but kind of.

The second story happened one night when he and I were sitting on the couch at the end of the day. He was doing homework, I was doing something quiet, like reading a book. Suddenly, Jon leaps off the couch and flies to the other side of the room, hysterical.

"What?" I inquire.

"Diggs! Look!  THERE'S A SPIDER HANGING DOWN FROM THE WALL EXACTLY NEXT TO WHERE I WAS SITTING!!!!!"

Some Necessary Background Information For Those of You Who Do Not Know Jon Well: Jon hates spiders. A whole lot. When we got married, I gave him a "Jon's Spider-Killing Kit" in hopes of helping him overcome his fear. It was no use. I'm the spider killer in our family, which I'm okay with as long as he's willing to kill all the snakes (and heaven help me if there's ever a snake in our home! We will move to a different STATE the day that happens!) 

So I start laughing my head off while Jon runs frantically into the other room. "Jon?" I gasp out, between laughs. "Are you getting a tissue to kill it with? Or do you want to give it to me to kill it with?"

Instead of replying, he comes running back into the room, and before I realize what's happening he's spraying Raid bug killer all over the hanging spider until it falls onto the couch, at which point he sprays half the couch in attempt to squelch the life out of the poor little vermin.

After exclaiming: "Stop! Stop!" multiple times and coming next to his side, I finally calm Jon down enough to get him to stop soaking the couch in poisonous bug spray. The spider was definitely dead by this point. "Diggs!" I exclaim. "You just sprayed half the couch with Raid!"

"That monster was going to kill me!"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, are you going to get a piece of toilet paper to pick the spider up and throw it away now?"

"Heck no!" he exclaimed, standing up to go put the bug spray away. "That's your job!"

These two experiences are just glimpses of the crazy happenings of married life with Jon. It just keeps getting better.

This weekend was pretty awesome too! Jon and I wen to see The Young Ambassadors on Friday evening, and then I spent the rest of the weekend cooking....homemade rolls, two loafs of homemade bread, white chicken chili, enchiladas, and cookies. It's been pretty awesome. To top it all off, this morning I got to go to my lovely friend Amelia's homecoming talk with my other friends Rachel and Lauren. It was so fun to be reunited as old roommates and to reminisce about old times. Good stuff.

And as for those papers I was supposed to finish grading this weekend...