{James' point of view}
Let's be frank here: I'd never had a very serious relationship before in my life. Sure, there were a couple of girls that I took out on several dates, but nothing long-lasting or significant. There was a definite difference in the relationship I had with Valerie than I had had with any other woman in my life; there was such a strong and immediate connection once we had overcome our tentativeness towards each other. After our second date, it was apparent that our relationship was going somewhere. The real question to me was where?
As somewhat of an aside, there was an LDS regional conference the day after our second date, wherein Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke at length on the subject of being single. He used an analogy wherein there was this particular stargazing club, and members of said club had these special jackets. He compared being single in the church to this club by saying that people show up to these club meetings without jackets and wonder where and when they get them. All the other club members are talking about how wonderful their jackets are, how warm they keep them, and when they see that you don't have a jacket, they will ceaselessly tell you how amazing these jackets are, and that you should really get on finding a jacket. Sound familiar? Anyways, because Valerie and I had both watched this conference, we started jokingly referring to our future eternal companions as jackets, and not so jokingly saying that perhaps we had already found our jackets...
We got together again that Monday night, where she again cooked dinner for us. We had lots of pleasant conversation, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. There was a point in the conversation, however, when we turned to the subject of being single. Valerie was going on about some negative part of being single, and I distinctly remember wondering if she didn't think that our relationship was going anywhere. It was with some trepidation that I asked her if she still considered herself single. She gives me this beautiful smile and said she did not consider herself as such. That was a very good night, indeed.
Valerie came over to my apartment Thursday evening of this same week. There came a point in the conversation where we started to talk about weddings because her half-sister was getting married that weekend. Now, I'm not saying we were talking about getting married quite yet, but there was definitely a bit of charge in the air as we discussed the subject. After dropping her off that night, I came back to my apartment in somewhat of a daze because I had realized that I may actually end up marrying this woman! I pondered the matter for some time, but even though Valerie and I had this incredibly strong connection so quickly, I was very resistant to the idea of getting married to her yet because I had always thought people that got engaged/married so quickly were absolute fools, and I didn't want to be one of those people. It was then that I determined that I must pray on the subject, and so turned to the Lord in prayer. The answer I received was so strong and so obvious as to be undeniable; I have only had two or three or spiritual manifestations that were stronger. The answer I received was yes, I should ask Valerie to marry me. It's not as though I minded this answer, to be honest. Now, keep in mind that I did not receive any counsel as to when I should propose, so I figured I needed to determine this information on my own. How did I sleep that night, I hear you ask? Very well, I assure you!
The following day, Valerie was up with her birth family in preparation for her sister's wedding, so I did not have the opportunity to see her that day. While I was watching a movie with my roommate Damian, however, I received a text from her. I don't recall the exact words, but she was definitely frustrated with how very stressful this event was turning out to be. I talked with her a bit on the subject, and she eventually said that she would not run her wedding this way at all. This next question took some courage to ask, but I ventured to query how she would run her wedding. She talked about how she would like a garden reception and such, but the part that stood out to me the most was at the very beginning of her text where she said something to the effect of, "Should we be so lucky as to get married, darling..." Most exciting to see her say, not going to lie!
The next evening, I threw her a text asking her how the wedding had gone, and she said she was chilling with her family, so we arranged to have her call me when she was on her way home. Now, if you know either of us very well, you know that Valerie hates talking on the phone, and I hate it even more than she does. Rather significant that we were so desperate to talk to each other that we would do so over the phone! We chatted for a good while, but I don't think anything of interest to our readers was communicated, other than the fact we confirmed our dinner date for the following day, when I was planning on cooking liver and onions for her. If only either of us had had any idea how very eventful that date would turn out to be!
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