In the Beginning

Today as we were gathered for dinner at my family's house in Spanish Fork I started thinking about how seemingly small events-little choices we make every day-lead to the rest of our lives. Take for instance back in 2005 when I first moved out to Utah to go to BYU. It wasn't where I really wanted to go, but everything seemed to be pointing me in that direction. My daddy told me to hang out in front of the law building and snatch a lawyer to marry. I'm ashamed to admit that I actually hung out there quite often with those hopes in mind.

I had been there for a week when a guy with a tattoo, earrings, shaved head and chipped front tooth (my father's total nightmare for his daughter) addressed me and my roommate on the stairs of my apartment complex to say, "hey ladies, how are you this evening?" I brushed him off so fast and as soon as he was out of earshot proclaimed to my roommate, "that guy is a total creep."

He joined the church not to long afterwards. I remember one night laying in bed chatting with my roommate. For some reason-and I am ashamed to admit this- we were discussing the new year callings and who we would least like to serve with. First on my list, "creepy convert." To this day I'm not sure if the Lord was punishing me for discussing such things, or blessing me. Maybe a bit of both. The very next Sunday I was informed that I would have a new FHE co-leader, and that it was indeed the creepy convert, Paul Phalen.

I was bitter about working with him at first. But as time went on I found that he was really eager to learn more about the church and we became friends. I'm not saying that we hung out outside of FHE, because we didn't really. That is until I found myself in a strange, dark club known as "The Forsaken." I had just gone through my first BYU breakup and my roommate had a raging crush on the leader of this "club." It was designed for people who were so sick of dating but still wanted to associate with others on date nights in a non-date-like manner. This guy happened to be Paul's roommate, and so I found myself tagging along with my roommate so she wouldn't feel so awkward hitting on the president of an anti-dating club.

At this point you're probably thinking that we're close to living happily ever after. Not even close. Another one of his roommates caught my non-anti-dating eye. Before I knew it the club had disbanded. My roommate and the "dark lord of celibacy" as he liked to be called, were dating. I was dating roommate #2 and Paul was dating a girl in the ward. The stars were not lined up yet.

Then the summer came. Things weren't working out with roommate #2. Not at all. Paul's relationship was on the rocks. Somewhere in here, while we were dating other people, we became actual friends. I would go over to his apartment and we would think of ways to break up with our prospective others.

We broke up around the same time, and surprisingly, this breakup was hard for me. The night we officially broke up, Paul walked me the malt shoppe and bought me a malt. I remember that night his exgirlfriend said I would find a better guy...someone like Paul. Through my tears I said, "what, do you hate me or something!" I swore off dating for good at this point and determined that falling for any other members of apartment 61 was completely impossible. Thus I spent a lot of time there, taking comfort in the fact that dating was taboo with these guys. Paul was on a "dating fast" as he prepared to go to the temple for the first time. It was safe.

His ex could not get over him. We were close friends by now and I found myself hanging out with Paul most of the time. This made for a VERY unhappy apartment life. There were nights that I would drive out to Spanish Fork just to avoid the awkwardness of it all. Then in September something totally unexpected happened. I knew. I had been told by my married friends that when you've met the right person you just know. It was a terrifying experience for me. I loved Paul as a friend, but didn't like him like that. In a desperate attempt to trip up fate I dated anyone and everyone in sight. At one point I was going out with a kid that hadn't even left for his mission yet! Not to mention the guy that wore shoulder pads outside his clothes, or the guy that broke every bone in his body to evade the army. One problem though...I missed my best friend.

So Christmas rolls around and his dating fast is over. Because I already know the person I'm going to marry, I figure we should date or something. You know, the normal thing to do. So I approach him one night and say, "Paul, I think we should date." He keeps looking at the book that I know he's no longer reading and says, "oh yeah, why do you think that?" I then go into a long oratory about how we're best friends and if we don't date we'll never know and that if it doesn't work out between us our friendship is gone, but if he marries someone else it is to, so either way we lose unless we date. He looks at me for the first time and says, "so we're not talking about dating, we're talking about getting married. I already know you. What's the point in dating? Let's just get married." I thought a second. It wasn't the response I had expected, but he was right. "Ok," I said, "let's get married."

So while I was sitting there, eating my dinner of boiled pork (thanks to one of Ryan's friends adding a potful of water to the crock pot while no one was looking), I was thinking how incredibly odd it all is. Things didn't turn out the way I thought they would, but I couldn't be happier with the way that they have.