After graduating from BYU but before heading off to graduate school at the University of Utah, I went on a fun little three-week trip to Peru with one of my best friends whom I met at BYU. He and I had a blast, traipsing around Lima, Arequipa, Puno, Cuzco, Machu Picchu, etc.
I have some fun stories of that trip. Perhaps I’ll post about them in the future, so you can read them.
I returned to the United States (super ill and having to go to the ER from food poisoning or something) to find a message on my phone from one of the administrators or somebody like that of I think the Writing Program wanting to know if I’d be interested in teaching a writing class, freshman level. I was super excited! I called back, afraid the offer was no longer on the table because I hadn’t been in the country to receive it. Fortunately, it was still available. The only section left available to teach was a 7:30 a.m. class, and if I remember right, they thought maybe I wouldn’t want it because of the hour, but I jumped at the chance. I was going to be a teacher at a University!!!
The moment I got off the phone, I thought to myself:
“Crap! I don’t know how to teach!!!”
I moved up to a basement apartment just a half a block from the UofU campus. An old lady lived upstairs, and she rented her six-bedroom basement (small basement with crammed in “bedrooms” (Mine was actually bedroom sized, but others weren’t much bigger than walk-in closets).
And that began my days at the University of Utah. I re-wrote the curriculum for the class I was teaching, and dove in. I started my grad classes in the Communication department, thinking I was heading myself toward being a marriage educator or something like that when I finished my degree. Thinking I might go on for a Ph.D as well.
I made some good friends in the LDS church student congregation (all single adults) that I attended, and we had a blast. We went on all sorts of fun and crazy adventures all over the place. So many fun stories. Makes me smile just to think about it.
The first couple months at school were actually an extreme challenge for me. I struggled to overcome dyslexia as a kid (reading was a super big challenge, and I still don’t know if I overcame it because it was a super mild form and I learned to compensate, or if I still struggle… I just don’t know. I don’t know anything other than my own experience, and I always struggled with the reading comprehension assignments/test sections).
Anyway, part of the challenge, and why I brought up the dyslexia thing was that I had mountains of journal articles to read. Like 100+ pages of thick-as-molasses, bore your eyes out, dull but exceedingly difficult to follow because of the scientific speak that most who write journal articles seem to think is necessary in order to be professional. Dump that on top of papers to write, papers to grade, classes to prepare for, both teaching and attending, etc. It was a super big challenge.
That wasn’t the hardest part, though.
The hardest part was that just days or weeks before, I had told my on-again-off-again college girlfriend something like “I think I want to marry you,” and she had responded by asking for time to think about it. She wanted to have some time completely to herself, without any communication from me at all.
That was gut wrenching–to that point, probably the most difficult experience I’d gone through in my life. I survived by calling my mom, all the time, and by singing an LDS hymn “Master the Tempest is Raging” over and over and over… and over and over and over. I believe that’s also when my mom shared an LDS scripture with me that became one of my staples for many years to come: D&C 123:17 — “Therefore, dearly beloved brethren. Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power, and then may we stand still with the utmost assurance to see the salvation of God, and or His arm to be revealed.”
Though that song and that scripture were a great comfort to me, it took everything I had to not be in tears a good chunk of the time. I was terrified.
I even wrote a song during that time. I’d put the words down, but I don’t remember the positive verses off the top of my head (I never write a song without it having a hopeful up side. I don’t want to flood the world with anything that is only sad or only lonely or only angry. I want every message I share by song to have hope in it. Hope for something better.).
Anyway, after something like six or eight weeks, she contacted me, and she told me that she was ready to go as far as I wanted to go. She also told me that her bishop had told her not to. I still wonder why he told her that. I had had struggles with pornography addiction that of course he new about, I was actually better then with my addiction than I am now, though (relapses were rare while I was a student at BYU, and I had a long long clean streak while a student at the U, but these days, I’ve struggled a lot more).
At first, I think I was probably ecstatic to hear her news. But then…
I was reminded of the multiple times I’d felt that the relationship wasn’t right. And by continuing with it, I was trying to force something that wasn’t going to be best.
Now, I don’t know how clear I’ve made it in my autobiographical sketches to this point, but I was a very active and committed member of the LDS church at that time, and I fully believed in revelation (that God communicates directly to us in a number of ways). I mention that so that this next part makes sense.
I remember driving to school one day from wherever I was that day. I can still remember the hill I was driving up. I was talking to God in my mind, trying to convince him that it was okay for me to marry my girlfriend. I sort of begged and begged, and then all of the sudden, I felt like I got a clear message. The message was basically: “If you want to, go for it.” But the feeling and the context I got from it was “You do what you want to do, but I’ve warned you. What follows is on you.”
All in that instant, I shifted. I was actually afraid. I was like, ok, nevermind, you win. I’m not gonna risk going against you.
And I didn’t. I broke it off.
Was it because I didn’t love her? No. I wouldn’t be surprised if we were to be in the same room again that I would still have feelings for her. The love didn’t just disappear. I realized that the six plus weeks of agony was agony I’d put myself through. It was also agony that I put her through. It wasn’t right. “Us.” Perhaps her bishop (my old bishop) knew what I had been struggling to admit to myself. It wasn’t right. We weren’t right for each other. The love was there for sure.
If I had to venture a guess as to why it wasn’t right, it was me. I wasn’t right. She was one of, if not the purest soul I’d ever gotten to know. Right there at the top with any others I’ve met. But I was still an impatient person. While her spiritual softness and heart were light years ahead of mine, my book smarts and more academic brain wasn’t patient with her. I know my impatience broke her heart and made her feel terrible at least once. I’ve imagined her having to go through that with me while I learned how to be patient–how awful she’d feel over and over again until I learned.
I’m glad we never got married. Sometimes, when I’m lonely, I wish we had. As I mentioned, the love was still there. But I’m glad we didn’t.
I only hope that I’m better in that area of my life than I was then. I’m afraid I’m not, though. I can be very patient, but I can also be very impatient when I think people should understand things more quickly. It’s usually something they can see in my body language and tone of voice even though I try not to show that I’m impatient. I know that hurts people, seeing that I’m frustrated that they’re not getting it. Sends the message to some people that they’re not smart. That hurts.
Anyway, I’ve spent a long time writing about a brief season in my life, but it’s important, I think.
My experience at the University of Utah was overall a good experience. I loved teaching. I loved hanging out with my friends and having random adventures. I didn’t really love school. I realized very quickly that the program I was in was not what I wanted to do, but I didn’t know what else to do, so I just kept with it.
I moved a few times, from Salt Lake, to Sandy, to Midvale. Different wards but some of the same friends in my activities groups. In general, it was a good, fairly happy time, at least that I can recall. There were also plenty of hard times. I’ve always been terrified of asking girls out, so my dating life was pretty minimal. I’d take a girl out a few times, and they wouldn’t be interested. Others would be interested in me but I didn’t return the interest. On and on.
My master’s program dragged on a semester or so longer than I’d hoped. I failed a class. My master’s project kicked my butt, but I finally made it through to the other side. I’d graduated from another university. I was still single. And life was starting to get more real.
While living in the Midvale duplex, the last place I lived during my University of Utah years, I had another “spiritual” experience related to my life and marriage and whatnot. I won’t share the details because when I had the experience, which I felt was a direct message from god to me, the revelation came with the stipulation that I share it with no one. To this day, though I struggle to believe in revelation anymore (I neither believe nor disbelieve) I still want to respect the experience. I know I must have broken the direction given to me in the revelation at least once because I had someone I was once close to mention it to me, and it shocked me that she knew about it. I think I must have told her when she was feeling down about something. Anyway, there might be a couple other people I’ve told as well, but I still feel to respect it as much as I can right now.
Suffice it to say, the message I felt I received had to do, not with the who or the why or how, but the when of marrying that special someone I’d find.
When I received the “revelation,” it was actually something I didn’t want. It was heartbreaking to me. I think I might have cried a bit. I don’t remember. I’d have to go back through my journal about the experience to see how all I reacted, but I’m not gonna take the time to go find that right now. Again, sufice it to say, I remember it was not a pleasant message to receive.
I tucked that revelation away. Keeping it sacred. Keeping it safe, and telling no one for quite a while.
That revelation would, in some very important ways, shape the way the following years of my life would go (with regard to dating and marriage, etc.).
I think that was 2007 or 2008? I don’t remember. Again, I’d have to look at my journal entries. But in 2008, we had the financial crisis. The Great Recession. It was at that point that, though I’d stayed on teaching after I’d graduated with my master’s degree, they had to let me go. With budgets and class sizes shrinking, or something like that, they gave priority to teachers who’d been there longer and to new students who needed the tuition helps that came from teaching.
As everything I’d gone up to Salt Lake for was coming to an end–school, work, etc., my life would shift again. I pointed my gaze back to Provo…
(p.s. I’m sure I’ll update this and all my autobiographical sketches. I haven’t read over this, and I need to, and to fill it in to make it more complete. I’ll also add pictures to it to bring it more to life. Just not sure when that will be.)
Lift the World 