Chapter 1.3 -- Homecoming Dance -- Crushes (Julia)
Chapter 1.4 -- Homecoming Dance -- Crushes (Beryl)
So the girl I had nursed a terrible crush on since middle school, whom I had written to sort-of regularly during the first year of my mission, and who had replied maybe twice, had agreed to meet me at Texas Technical University, where she was attending school. My best friend outside of church, Rodrick, was attending Tech, too. Texas Tech was a pretty decent technical school, also had a good school of medicine, the one Lute would be attending when he got back from his mission.
I called Rodrick up and he talked to his roommate, and they decided I could roll out a sleeping bag on their floor so I could have more time to check the school out and talk to Beryl in the morning. 'Drick indicated he questioned my motivations, my rationality, and my sanity, but other than that did not offer advice. He knew a lot of my history with Beryl.After delivering papers Wednesday afternoon, I ate dinner and drove the three hours to Lubbock. 'Drick and his roommate were studying for tests, so we didn't spend more than a half hour catching up on the last two years and talking about our plans for the future. He didn't seem much interested in microprocessors and digital circuits, preferring analog. 8080 vs. 6800 was a non-question to him.
First thing in the morning, I went to the school offices and got a course catalog and other information, and talked with a couple of admissions counselors. Then I went to meet Beryl in the school cafeteria.
She was seated at a table near the entrance, and I recognized her from a distance.
Recognition was an issue. It had been two years.
She was nicely dressed, in something of the same sort of fashion as Julia had been wearing when we first met. Maybe it was the "in" fashion that fall.
Nicely dressed?
It wouldn't have mattered what she wore. I had always found her devastatingly attractive no matter what. That hadn't changed.
She'd grown up a bit from the petite, really cute junior high cheerleader who had won a young geek's heart in 8th grade algebra by asking him why he didn't try harder, but she was still petite. Curves in all the places most guys seem to like curves, and a face that, even without makeup, seemed like it would just never wear out its welcome.
She looked up as I approached. "Hi."
I couldn't read much from her expression.
"Hello. Uhm, mind if I sit?"
"Of course not." She didn't exactly smile, but she didn't exactly frown, either, just nodded once towards an open chair.
I sat. "So," I hesitated, "how has school been for you?" And I could have kicked myself.
She tilted her head. "Good enough."
I looked for something to say. "Still a year to go, huh?"
"Yeah." Again, she nodded.
"So what are you planning to do after you graduate?" I think that was what I said next.
"I'm hoping to teach special needs children." Now she smiled, but she didn't really seem to be feeling that much more at ease than I was.
"That's a good field to work in. Meaningful work."
She nodded in a matter-of-fact way. "What do you plan on doing now that you're back?"
As beautiful as she was, her physical
beauty no longer gave me the kind of motivation that had once pushed me
out of my comfort zone to talk to her in junior high school, or even the kind of motivation that had in
times past sent me out now and then just to ride my bike past her house
and wonder what she was doing. Now it was just causing me stress.
With Lizzie Ann, I was comfortable to be myself. With Satomi, maybe I wasn't as comfortable, but I always felt, I don't know, like I was with a friend.
With Beryl, I had always felt out of my element. Her family was upper middle-class, mine was entirely outside of the social class structure -- I was a stray tomcat wandering too close to a family-of-quality's favored tabby, in her perch on an expensive, dangerous rocking chair.
And even though I felt that I had now been allowed onto that rocking chair with her for a moment, it was not a comfortable feeling at all.
"Still not sure. Engineering or physics. Or maybe computers."
"Tech has good engineering departments, I hear."
"The physics here is pretty good, too."
Again she nodded.
"I also want to keep studying Japanese, though, and Tech doesn't have anything but really basic classes that I wouldn't, uhm, wouldn't really be challenged by."
Negative, negative.
"Japanese. You don't have to be challenged by every class, though, do you?"
"True."
"You learned it pretty well, then?"
"Iya -- mā, senkyōshi toshite wa jūbun kamo shiremasen."
She smiled a tight, indulging smile. "I have no idea what you just said."
"Well enough for a missionary, I guess."
"Oh. So are you thinking of coming to Tech?"
"I'm going to take classes at OC next semester, and see where it goes from there."
"Do you plan to live in Japan again sometime?"
"I'd kind of like to work and live there for a while."
I thought about mentioning my reason -- that I felt I could do more missionary work as an ordinary person than I was able to accomplish as a missionary, but the words just felt out of place and got stuck in my mind.
"I don't think I could live there. It would just be too strange."
"It's quite modern now. You get used to the differences quickly."
She smiled wryly. "I guess you did."
There were other things besides Japanese that would need to be talked about if we tried to get together, much larger things.
I think she understand that, if from nothing else, from my reservations about her drinking sangría when we were eighteen. She had been so vulnerable on that occasion, and I had not dared take advantage of that vulnerability. And I was never sure that she was not disappointed that I hadn't.
So much of what little relationship we actually had was sketched in negative space.
No, I never mentioned that occasion to 'Drick, or to anyone but my mom. Mom had just nodded her head and let me talk.
I didn't know how to broach the question of religion, and I knew I would never be happy with a woman I couldn't even talk about my religion with.
Somehow we stumbled through maybe half an hour of attempts at conversation, skirting around the important topics.
"Are you going to eat lunch?"
"I guess not." I sighed. "I'm sorry I've taken your time. We don't seem to have much in common."She nodded. "Joey, you're such a nice guy, and all that, but I think you're right. We don't seem to have much in common." She smiled a little sadly, and we took leave of each other.
I was realizing that I had
spent eight years of my life idealizing this young woman. I was not having sexual fantasies about her, but I was objectifying her. I wanted her to be something I wanted her to be instead of who she was.
I had given my heart to an idea, a dream, not a real person.
Ironically, we had more in common than I realized. I later spent ten years teaching children, enjoying it immensely. If I had been considering the possibility of a teaching career at the time, maybe we could have found some traction.
Or maybe not. Anyway, there was no sudden chemistry, no voices of angels telling me to fly in the face of logic and continue my pursuit of her.
I went back to talk with 'Drick a bit between his classes.
"How'd it go?"
"We talked."
"And?"
"I guess we really don't have much in common, and we seem to be heading different directions."
He grinned. "I figured you'd figure it out pretty soon."
"Had to try."
"Braver than me."
"Still not dating?"
"The idea of marriage scares me."
We talked a bit more and I headed home. Arrived in time to get the afternoon's load of newspapers delivered.
I still, every now and then, wonder whether I made a mistake in letting the differences be too much of a barrier. There must have been some reason for the terrible crush, for the torch I had born for eight years, other than her physical beauty and the fact that she had taken the trouble to ask me in 7th grade algebra class why I didn't do homework when it was clear I could make better grades.
On the other hand, making my choices clear concerning Beryl allowed me to pursue a different path.
Crushes.
My sister Louise explained her philosophy about crushes to me when I was about eleven or twelve. Crushes were one kind of love, an appreciation of the good qualities in people. She had crushes on many people, both male and female. None of them were people she was interested in marrying. It was one kind of love, but not the kind of love you give to your marriage partner.
Being in love was different. There were things you only did in marriage, and having crushes, being willing to appreciate the good in others, was not engaging in infidelity to Howard, the guy she was dating and considering marrying at the time.
She was seventeen or eighteen at the time, and I figured she knew what she was talking about.
It made sense. Not just to my mind, but in my heart, it felt right to be able to love people that I wasn't planning on marrying -- not to want to make love to them, but to appreciate them and their good qualities, to have tender feelings towards them, and to want them to be happy. And even to reach out to try to help them be happy when I had legitimate opportunity.
And that helped me recognize that I wasn't really falling in love with about every girl I ever met. I just developed crushes easily. And I should not be worried about it.
It was a great burden off a twelve year-old's shoulders. If fidelity to the feelings of my heart did not require me to learn to be a Don Juan, neither did fidelity to the people I loved require me to become a King David. (Or a Brigham Young.)
There are things you only do for love in marriage, and if you keep those separate from the other things you do for love, love can be shared with everyone.
So my sister Louise helped me untangle the wisdom of God which I was learning by means of the Spirit of God in my heart, through prayer and studying the scriptures, and separate it from the human wisdom which I was learning from the world around me, from the radio and newspapers, in stores, at school, and even through the outward church -- and also even from ideas I had brought with me from before I was born. She helped me see that there would be a way for me to learn the laws of man but follow the laws of God.
I had a crush on Louise, too, of course, but I had crushes on all four of my big sisters.
Perhaps that torch I had born for eight years was just one huge crush, after all.
In retrospect, one thing has become clear. Pursuing Beryl would have required me to break through whatever barrier prevented me from broaching the subject of Church with her.
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