Having passed a particular milestone, seeing 50 years in the rear-view, I should probably pay homage to those women that have made my life richer and well, tolerable really. This list isn't exhaustive so if I forget or don't mention someone and they feel slighted, please understand that 50 years is a lot to hold in retrospect during a blog post.
My first confidant was my sister. All through High School, she is the one I told my secrets, challenges, and frustrations. I can't tell you how important she is to me.
Dating. Dating was a mess. I knew that I wanted a strong, deep relationship in my life but I knew during High School just how unprepared I was for it. My first date was taking a girl to Burger King and she kept looking at me like there was something wrong with me. When I called her, she was guarded. She probably didn't know what to do with this guy that just wanted to find out what she was about. Short lived non-romance.
Serious dating wasn't all that much better as I entered college. The first girl I had a longer term relationship with was frustrating me and for the first time, I realized the social pressures involved with mutual friends and the larger circles of culture. It didn't end well.
Between my first and second years, I had several dates while at home away from Utah. I was just starting to become at ease with longer, deeper discussions with the women I went out with. While in Utah I found it hard to get a girl to notice me because I wasn't a "Returned Missionary" yet at home, girls wanted to go out with me because I did interesting things and I was smart and going to a good school. I was also getting rid of my awkwardness bit by bit.
Then I dated the woman that would probably affect my life, or at least expectations, more than any other. She was real. I don't know if that makes any sense, but when you meet those real people, or at least become aware of them, it affects you. Smart, witty, sarcastic, independent, not afraid to speak her mind and let others know what her opinion was, she was someone that I envied and looked up to. Even if her frustrations were directed toward me, I took it as an opportunity to improve.
As I started to become an emotional basket case as mission and school pressures started exerting themselves, I was still driven in trying to improve. Unfortunately, the mission drove me into a depression (which I didn't know what it was called until much later) that changed me into someone I hated and loathed. I crawled my way out of it determined to become a better person. While in one area, a girl befriended me and helped me understand myself to the point where I wanted to name my future daughter after her. She and her family provided a haven from my self-imposed prison. After so much rejection day after day, any bit of acceptance was so welcome.
I was a different person by the time I came back to BYU. I know I was more confident in myself and I knew that I was going to date like mad. I wanted to have some fun. I wanted to find someone that might understand me. Yes, school was the priority. I was in engineering. Dang right it took most of my time and effort. Still, I knew now the kind of person I was looking for.
I can't say that they were that easy to find.
Almost immediately I fell into a relationship that I didn't want with someone I didn't respect and I knew it. Still, having real conversations, adult conversations, with the women around me let me know that I needed someone else. Right off I relearned again that breakups can be messy. More so when the women were older and knew the buttons to push.
I worked at the stadium that summer and fall and I worked with a woman, an engaged woman, that had such a wit and quick mind that I swear I was staring in awe of her most of the time. The fact that I could hold a conversation with such a person was a marvel in itself. I mean, I knew that intelligence, and not just emotional intelligence, was attractive to me but I didn't realize how strong it was. I never attempted to do anything untoward with this woman, but it just reinforced how much I needed this kind of person around me. I had no ego in that I needed to be smarter than the women I dated. I felt very comfortable with the idea that some of the women I might date were smarter than me.
I changed who I was dating at the time. If I didn't feel that spark, that chemistry right off, I didn't date that person long. I was trying to find that someone and I wasn't wasting much time. One of my roommates once commented when he saw me with a girl, "Which one is this?"
Dating Tracy was different. I had two semesters of German with her so I knew a bit about her before I ever asked her out, and that chemistry was there, at least for me. Still, I've been in more one-sided relationships before and this was quickly taking that route. After a few dates, and even though I was crazy about her, I wasn't getting any response from her. I wasn't angry, I was frustrated. But, and this is major for me, I had enough respect for myself that I wasn't going to waste my energies with someone that clearly didn't want to be with me. I was still dating others that wanted to be with me, nerd that I was.
And then Tracy's mother talked to her. Next thing I know, I'm spending all my available time with this clever, wonderful woman (Tracy), the one that wasn't interested previously. Twitterpation merged more with a comfort than I ever felt before. Not saying that I wasn't still awkward and clumsy, but as we spent time with each other, we fell more into a rhythm. I guess that's how it goes.
I've always found it easier for me to talk to women, and that really didn't change much over the years. As Tracy and I lived on, we wanted to have a family. We adopted Hayden. When we felt that there was room in our home and hearts, we tried to adopt again. That was an expensive and laborious process as we wanted to adopt internationally, to help those in dire straights. During this period I spent a good deal of time getting to know a woman I worked with that was from Bolivia. She lived an interesting life and I felt honored to be her friend and make her laugh once in a while. When my church was going to stop the adoption program we entered, I didn't know what to do. Tracy had called and told me and I was beside myself. I walked the quarter mile from my side of the building to where she sat and I promptly lost any and all composure. I was weeping in her cube and she realized that I was in no mood to drive. She drove me home, with a stop along the way where we talked some more, and I cried some more. I can't thank her enough for that afternoon that she spent with me, trying to recover enough to function.
Then came Facebook as well as some pretty in-depth reading of philosophy in religion and things started to become uneasy. I connected with people that I didn't think I would reconnect with in my lifetime. I was coming more empathetic in my outlook and questioning events and decisions in my life. I went up to Wisconsin to talk to a woman I've known, loved and respected from my college days. I didn't have an agenda but I did want to talk about my life before I met her because I was becoming brave enough to talk about it and I wanted someone to hear me, if nothing else.
Shortly thereafter, my life came crashing down all at once, or so it seemed. I know it took time, but it felt as though everything changed so quickly. My beliefs left me. I needed to recontextualize my life. While I learned to open up with Tracy, our marriage became strained and I wondered if she would still love me and respect me as I felt like I became a different person than the one she married. Hours and days and months of talking and re-examining our relationship followed. I don't think I ever appreciated her more as we worked things out and recentered on each other.
During all of this, I found friendship and support from a woman at work with just talking about things as we walked around the building. A woman in Wyoming and I spent time talking about relationships and books and helped me cope with long-buried feelings. A woman in Oregon helped me by letting me write, letting the narration in my head have an outlet.
I also couldn't leave this period without giving my thanks to a woman I attended High-School with but never really spoke during that time. Talking to her about our mutual friends and our different lives helped me find myself and discover the person I have become. I cannot thank her enough for the support and time spent talking about our lives and goals.
Lately, I haven't had any existential dreads in my life, but I do want to mention another woman that I worked with briefly, but we chat often. She helped me rediscover my love of learning and she tolerates my age-addled mind. She was born the year I left on my mission so there is quite an age difference, on top of the numerous cultural differences, our having been raised on the other sides of the planet from each other. Still, she helped provide the impetus to get me back to the screens to learn new ways of doing things.
I don't know where I would be without these wonderful people in my life, and I hope I can still learn from them to become a better person than I am now.
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