I was talking with a friend yesterday and she told me the saddest thing I have ever heard, only problem is I had heard it before.
The day was glorious, beautiful, if not a little dull. I sat in my fifteen by ten office staring out my back doors at the cloudy sky. My hands itched to hold a new book, my back to lay in soft scratchy grass, my new shades on my face, the sun peaking out from behind tree branches. But I couldn't. So I asked if others were. "You aren't working today, please tell me you're outside reading a good book and soaking up that sun." I got a very grumpy. "There is no sun." Back. And I quickly found no one was. It was apparently only my dream. But another quickly followed when a friend of mine text me with a problem.
-"I'm thinking very dangerously." Naturally that catches my attention. Dangerously? Does she want to rob a bank? Does she want to go streaking? Is she going to light off fireworks? No. None of the above. She was thinking dangerously about a boy. She wanted to ask him out.
-"What do you think?" I think that over. What do I think? I come to the decision that I'm torn. Part of me says you only live once, and the other part says you're odds aren't worth the stress and heartache in asking. But she's adament. She even calls me at lunch so we can have a discussion, a thick debate. Very quickly she convinces me it's a good idea. I'm still hesitant, but other than talking about all the things that could happen I have no problem with her idea. I even start to get excited. We only live once, anything is possible, shoot for the moon, it's just one guy there will always be more. And then I start to think about my guy. My moon. And shooting for him. I get excited, I get nervous, I get excited again. And then that all dies.
-"My Mom says weight is a big issue in our generation and I would be depressed when he rejects me."
My heart sinks, stops, and stumbles to a start at half mass. I've heard it before, not put quite like that, but basically the same. My family says the same things. We aren't dumb. We know how the world works. Heck I think I get to see it more than anything with the stupid 'Singles Ward'. But with the kind of day it had been, the hope that had gone into this moment, and the dreams on the horizon it tears me apart.
I flop through the rest of the day and freak my family out at home. My Mother thinks I'm going to kill myself and sends first my sister into to cheer me up and then when that doesn't work, she sends in the big guns, the never fail guns: my father. He sits and and doesn't say anything. I just want him to go away. And then he pulls out his journal, a journal I never knew he had, and reads a recount of when him, myself and my older brother Spencer went to Moab when I was ten. It was adorable from his point of view, when that doesn't produce a smile he continues to go through the objects from his mission (something he promised we would do at some point) and finds a piece of old newspaper. He laughs while reading it, I turn slightly.
"This is a newspaper clipping of BJ from high school. Mom said she is in this picture." He points to a worn out black and white picture of a large group of students. I try to see her but can't. It isn't a very good picture. "I said 'Mom the circles are the ones I think are her' and then I circled this black guy, this black guy, this black guy and then this white guy." I laugh, hard and long. My Dad continues. "And then my Mom sent it back, 'Kenny! You circled three black men and a guy!'" I laugh harder, my Dads even chuckling at this point. "Yeah Mom, I was serious, you only knew me for what Nineteen years at this point." I stare at the crazy man I call my father, the man that.....is a nerd, a comedian, a joke, weird, hilarious and likes to sleep. The guy that...freaking knows what to do. The guy that my mother sends in when she doesn't know what to do. The guy that always stands up for me.
The guy that doesn't have a weight issue.
The guy I will forever love. And at some point, when the time is right, the guy that I will look for in a spouse. The nerdy, hilarious, odd, kinda weird guy. Maybe not the most obvious choice, but obviously the best.
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