Hmmmmmm......
Well Yesterday was interesting. Jett met my parents. They met him.......there was a lot of silence. I was so surprised and admit that their meeting him was not what I expected. Mom and dad acted a little bit strange. They weren't very friendly and seemed rather serious. They usually laugh and joke and open up very fast to my friends and previous dates, but last night they seemed rather cold.
I felt terrible for Jett and I really wanted a chance to speak with mom and dad about why they were acting so off-standish, but sadly I was unable to before they left this morning.
Mom and dad bade Alyx and I goodbye at around 4 o clock this morning and then headed back to California. It was sad to see them go and momma kissed me before she left. But I did call them later to see where they were on their trip back home and what they were doing. Their reaction to Jett last night has me slightly worried. I trust and value their opinion so much and would never want to do a thing to hurt them.
My impression is that they may have acted this way with anyone I was dating. Afterall, Jett and I are speaking of marriage after only a couple of weeks and it must be scary for them to think about. I am the first child of six to be considering marriage. But I wish they had been kinder to Jett. I chose him as much as he is choosing me and if they were at all bothered, I wish they would've spoken to me about it yesterday so that I knew their concerns.
I was contemplating whether or not I was making the right decision in choosing a spouse so soon. Could I really be ready? Am I just absolutely naive and immature. Is there something that I have not yet considered? I was especially hard pressed with the echoes of my mom’s and dad’s reactions to Jett the previous night. Would they accept and love him the way he deserves to be?
Well 1:30 finally rolled around and I waited nervously for Jett to arrive. I heard him make his way down the stairs at around 1:40 and when I saw him, Wow. He looked so handsome. It was the first time that I’d seen him in a suit and he just looked beautiful. He gave me a hug and a kiss and then we discovered that we were slightly matching in our attire- this made me smile a great deal for hopeless-romantic 'girly' reasons that I will not disclose.
Jett was very nervous as we headed out the door to go to church. I wasn't sure why but my own thoughts had my attention as I was lost in an ocean of questions. During church, Jett's hands would not stop shaking. He was acting very nervous and I didn't know why! Plus he was really starting to bother me because he kept patting me on the back in the same way a father would give his son a pat on the back at a sporting event. “Good job son, go get ‘em”- I did not like this.
But my thoughts consumed me and thus I allowed the back-pats to continue.
When we got home Jett leaned in to give me a kiss and I hesitated (as I always do when I have something I need to talk about but am not sure how to begin). I made small talk and veered into the kitchen to make him a sandwich-muttering in my head most of the way. I was thinking “I don’t quite know what is going on or why I am feeling this way. He is so wonderful but my family last night was not what I thought they would be like.”
Jett didn’t say anything but ate his sandwich and then joined me to wash the dishes. –Did he notice me avoiding him? I hoped that he didn’t.
After the kitchen was clean, we sat down together at the kitchen table and I opened up my laptop and flipped to a familiar talk on lds.org about service that I had read the night before.
I was trying to avoid a "We need to talk" discussion, but Jett knew better than to fall for my tactics. We talked about what we knew about Service and then he asked me to take turns reading the talk with him. I loved it. Paragraph by paragraph we would switch off and read experiences of service lived by other members of our church. After we finished, I felt so comfortable and calm that I figured what had occupied my thoughts all day didn't really matter anymore and I made a decision to not share it with him. Excitedly, I asked him what topic he would like to look up next.
He told me ‘Trust’ and so I inserted that word into the LDS.org search engine and clicked enter. What we chose to read next was something I should have seen coming. We read a beautiful talk about trust in a marriage. After we finished, I felt so good. I felt relieved.
Why had I doubted? We both stood up and made our way to our special spot in grandma and grandpa's house- an old comfy couch in the theater room for which all of our dating conversations have taken place. On our journey over, Jett asked me if he could tell me something. I said yes and we sat down and cuddled up close to one another as he prepared his thoughts. What he said I also should’ve been expecting. He told me that if we were to be in a relationship with one another, we were to be completely honest with each other, not withholding any information at all.
He told me that he noticed that there was a lot on my mind. In my heart, I knew that he feared that I must be thinking about our relationship and I don’t think he felt that my thoughts were positive contemplation. Oh goodness, he was dead on. I couldn't let him be so right and so I tried to focus my actions of that day on my stresses with school, finals, work, and I even threw in familial pressures. He didn't buy it.
The next hour or so we fell in to a deep conversation about our young relationship. Jett told me how I was the first person he had dated that he felt fully trusted by. He told me that by the interactions he had with my parents last night, he felt as though they did not trust in him fully yet. This man is very wise.
I started to feel very foolish and guilty for questioning my feelings for him as legitimate. I felt so comfortable with him and I do trust him with all my heart. He has never given me a reason to lose faith in his sincerity and abilities and he consistently follows through in his word and deed.
I looked into his eyes and I realized that I was not being fair to him. Jett loves me so very much. He has given me everything he said he would give me and has proven himself fair. I know that he is not a perfect person, but neither am I and I feel that I need to grow in maturity and wisdom so that I can be completely fair to him. He takes responsibility for his actions and he always remembers everything that is expected of him. He goes above and beyond what I ask and he loves me for who I am.
Before he left tonight, he left me with these words to ponder:
“You are going to think I am crazy Ariana but listen please, I was going to propose to you before you left to California for the summer…..I was. But part of me feels as though maybe you do not trust me as much as I thought you did. I do not need to know anything else about you to decide if you are the right girl for me.
I know that I barely know you and I know that you barely know me. But the way I feel about you is the way I felt about the book of Mormon when I read it for the first time. I didn’t really understand what I was reading-I was Hindu. But the spirit confirmed to me that it was true. Over the years I have come to know of its truthfulness even more than I did when I first felt it was true and now,although I know a lot more about the Book of Mormon than I did eight years ago, it has been a process.
I did not need to know all about it before I was ready to join the church. I do not need to know everything about you before I decide you are the right girl for me. My feelings for you are real and you are an amazing woman. But it is your turn to decide if you’re feelings for me are the same way. Learn and pray about what you really want from life and when you commit, don't back away without first gaining a testimony that what you are doing is right."
So here I am, in my bed at 2:00 in the morning.....and I realize that I cannot commit halfway. I must be strong and exercise the faith that I have proclaimed to have throughout my life. The funny thing is that when I think about committing myself to marriage to that man, my heart begins to feel light and I cannot wipe the smile from my face.
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| Temple Square April 2011 |
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