Sunday Story Time: Fast forward

I bounded off to college without much more thought put towards Skunky...at least until I actually got to Idaho. I'm not entirely sure who called who first. Knowing myself though...and my oddly conflicting feelings about Skunky at the time, I'm fairly sure I'm safe in saying I called him.

I know that I missed my family and my ties to New Hampshire....and Skunky made me feel better about EVERYTHING. Always. I was working full time at the Wal-Mart in town, and going to school full time. I was exhausted and frustrated with friends, and a boy I thought I was dating at school...Skunky was my solace. The only person in the world who always made me feel better about myself. It was addicting to me, honestly, and it wasn't long before we were talking on the phone every day. He would call me "store to store" when we were working the same shifts and we would talk at work. He would leave messages on my cell phone, serenading me silly songs like " Would You Like to Swing On A Star". He even sent me flowers to the service desk one time, because I think I had had a bad week and he wanted to cheer me up!

And I was a very conflicted girl. Skunky is a bit of a pack rat when it comes to notes and emails ( even text messages and voice mails!) and doesn't get rid of them ever! So we can thank him for having these little gems from my past! I started school in Janurary, and on February 10th, I wrote him this note: ( I edited it a little :))


E----

I feel a little cheap writing this all down in an e-mail. But for two reasons I think this is the best way to at least start this conversation. 1) It gives me the time I need to actually articulate my thoughts in a clear way, something that I'm not always able to do on the phone. And 2) I think this will actually give you the space and time you need to think about what I'm going to say, and you won't feel put on the spot or cornered in any way.

Honestly. I'm confused about us. This is exactly what I feel about you:

I think you're amazing. You're funny, and your nice, and you're always happy. You always manage to find a bright spot in any situation. Your sarcasm is hilarious, but you're also able to take things seriously when you're supposed to. I love how you are just you, and you don't apologize for that fact. Anyone could take you or leave you, and it would be their loss. I love how you make me feel about myself. You make me feel appreciated and loved. And special .

There are some days when I'm totally pre-occupied with you. All I can do is think about you, and obviously those days are the days that I miss you the most.

I don't know if you understand fully how a girls minds work, but we're always thinking about the future, particularly when it comes to boys. And I've missed you more than I thought I was going to. So those unexpected feelings got me thinking... "Hmmm...maybe I really do like E---- more than I think I do."

And that thought, of course, leads me to imagine situations in which we acted like a couple. This is the part that makes it confusing for me. Imagining myself as your "girlfriend" should make me blissfully happy. Unfortunately, going down that path in my mind, feels so wrong in my heart, that it makes me sick.

And that, in turn, makes me sad and depressed, because I would be so lucky to end up with someone like you. Someone I know who would take care of me and love me the way that I should be loved.

Can you see my dilemma now? When I have you clearly set up in my head as one of my dearest friends, I miss you so much...it feels abnormal to miss just a "friend" this much. But when I think of you as anything else, my heart and soul rejects it. And that makes this situation really hard.


I know you all are probably groaning right now. Really, Jenn?? How did you not see it?? And WHAT IN THE CRAP was your hang up?? Well...obviously....I didn't know at the time. It would take me another 2 years before I would figure it out! ( Don't worry though...I promise it won't take me two years to tell this story!)

He responded by calling me, and basically told me that if friendship was all I had to offer, then he would take it gladly! So the madness continued. A week or two later, I was freaking out about us again, and in an attempt to calm things down a little, I challenged him by seeing who could last longer without calling each other. Here is our email exchange from that occasion: ( Thank you, honey!)


Jenn,

I hope that you are enjoying yourself, because I am not!
(Exaggerating!)  Right now I am using all of my conscience effort not
to knaw off my own head!  What was I thinking as I got off the phone
with you on Friday night?  I wanted to call you right back and cancel
this whole bet!  I would suffer drastically!  Knowing you
cannot/shouldn't do something makes the temptation even more great!
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!  I shall suffer though this!  My will is strong!
 In this letter I shall be sending you soon, I wanted to put "call me
when you get this" as a little joke, but I felt if you did call, I
would have won by your misinterpretation, thus I cheated.  I cannot
win that way!  I am trying to convince myself that I do not want to
talk on the phone.  (That is easy and true.)  The hard part is
convincing myself that I don't want to talk to you!  (Not at all easy
nor true!)

So I shall say that this will be a very Holy week for me and you will
have to wait for the 14th of March to hear about it (unless you give
in, because I surely will not!)!  First, church yesterday, tonight, a
talk with Megan, tomorrow, talk with Steven (the guy who gave me "his
favorite book"), Wednesday, cooking dinner for the Elders, then a
meeting with them, and then finally on Thursday, bible study with the
Hamels!  I can feel your temptation is getting stronger!
BWAAAHHHAHAHAHA!  I dispise talking on the phone, but talking to you
makes me feel happy!  I need to find a nice medium!  I have never
talked to anyone on the phone as long as when I talked to you!  (Here
is where feel special if you don't already!)

Anywho, I shall talk to you in less than a month!  Until then, swing
on a star for me!

- E
 


My response:


 E----,

I totally caved. You'll find that out tomrrow when you turn on your phone. LOL And I hadn't even read your e-mail, which most certianly probably would have been the topping on the cake!!!!

The sad thing I think is, I didn't even try to fight it. I was just thinking how much I missed you, and how much I needed to talk to you about all of the important decisions I'm making in my life right now and it was like....just call him.

And then your phone was off and I wanted to cry.

And then I talked for a 1/2 an hour with one of my cashiers about how amazing you are (probably boring her to tears) while our cars warmed up.

And now I'm home writing you an e-mail when I need to be writing an english paper.

Something is wrong with me.

E----...can I tell you that the dependency I have for you, which seems to be growing daily, is starting to scare me.

I'll talk to you tomorrow,
Jenn

Honestly...looking back on these emails now, I seriously cannot BELIEVE I didn't see it then. Well...I mean, obviously I did see it, I admit on several occasions to being scared about it! But I was a girl in some serious denial.

This was a fast forward through a couple of months of communications between Skunky and I. A LOT of our relationship was long distance....haha I'll try to make the fast forwards as few and far between as possible!

Next week? Skunky's trip out to Idaho...!

until next Sunday!