Ten years ago, a girl left home and ventured out on her own. She had big dreams and high hopes, and threw herself into her studies. She was focused on being successful and keeping her scholarship. Of course, she met a boy the first day on campus. He was in her chemistry class. Her Book of Mormon class. He sat behind her in English. He was in her ward. He was in her family home evening group. She saw him everywhere.
He had come from Colorado focused on getting through the year and heading out on a mission. He didn't set out to make friends with people and kept to himself, sitting on the sidelines and playing his guitar. Except he kept seeing this girl everywhere. He saw her a freshman orientation (apparently he sat behind her). He ditched out to hang with his brothers and drive around campus, but he still caught glimpses of her walking across the bridge to the Marriott Center.
One Sunday, just after school started, she saw him walking back to his dorm room with his guitar strapped across his back like a wandering minstrel. She asked him a simple question and they started talking. For four hours. He had been in the process of writing a letter to his parents about how the people at BYU weren't what he was expecting. He never sent it.
On Friday a group in ward decided to go see the walk-in movie on campus: The Three Amigos. He didn't want to go, so his next door neighbors intervened and invited her on his behalf. He claimed to be angry at their interference, but considered the "non-date" a date anyway and halfway through the movie, he held her hand. The next day, they went on two dates back to back and at the end of the night, standing outside her dorm building, he kissed her.
From then on they were rarely apart. They went to class together, studied together until they kicked out of dorm lobbies and the Cannon Center at midnight, and then they stayed up talking and laughing until 2am. He didn't tell her he was getting up at 5am most days for ROTC Honor Guard. It didn't take long for her to wonder if maybe this boy would end up being THE boy, but she never talked about it.
The year passed in a blur of football games, chemistry tests, a hundred meals in the Cannon Center. He took her to homecoming and the Air Force ball. She was there when he opened his mission call and announced he was "going to Canada, and speaking frickin' Portuguese!" He was there when she found out that her high school band director had passed away from his battle with cancer. He began to hope that maybe she would still be there in the end, after his mission, but he never talked about it.
At the end of the school year he headed back to Colorado and prepared for his mission. She went back to Arizona and began to write him letters. For two years they played long distance tic-tac-toe. They shared in each others' successes, trials, frustrations with roommates and companions, their hopes and dreams and big goals, but they never talked about what MIGHT be. He learned Portuguese and discovered ketchup chips, ate amazing food, ate disgusting food, and got a lot of parking tickets. She studied hard, hated conducting research, loved being a TA, and dated lots of interesting boys. She spent a summer working with youth camps and EFY. He watched most of his new converts get deported.
Finally, the years turned to months and then to weeks and then to days and then the THE day. He was coming back to Provo, and he wanted to see her. She tried to pretend it was just another day. Just another day where she did her hair five times. And tried on 15 different outfits. And wandered her apartment trying to act normal. She drove her car over to the duck pond and worried that he would try to shake her hand. Or decide to spend the rest of his life parting his hair. He was there with his brother and his guitar, and when she walked up to him he hugged her and she was right back where she had been three years before. They talked and laughed and he played his guitar. They spent a few days together wandering campus, remembering.
A week later, she piled in a van with his brothers and drove to Colorado for his homecoming talk. The first day he took her hiking around Red Rocks to see the sunrise, and he told her he wanted to date her again. The next day they walked around a lake at the park and he told her he didn't want to date anyone else; that night he kissed her. The next day they went to a science museum, and watched a squirrel eat a strawberry while they picnicked under a tree, and he told her he wanted to marry her. The day after that they headed downtown and sat on the steps of the capital building with his guitar, and they decided to get married in December.
She went back to Arizona, booked a temple date, and bought a dress. He slaved in the plastics factory and bought an emerald ring that her brother later described as "exactly the sort of ring someone should buy for her." Just before school started he gathered her friends and family and sent her on a videotaped scavenger hunt around campus, visiting all their favorite spots. At the duck pond, he played his guitar and sang her a song about growing old together, and his hands shook when he asked her to marry him.
The next four months were a frenzy of studying, planning, and curling up on the couch watching football. He changed his major to accounting and earned his highest grades ever. She was in her senior year of chemistry and had her worst grades ever. Finally, December came, and while the snow fell outside they were married for time and all eternity, and there was no more wondering about what might be.
From there the story begins to be a blur of living in a basement bunker below single guys who never turned on the heat and cooked with a lot of garlic. Of explaining FIFO, LIFO, and debits and credits; of diagramming the enzymes involved in the Krebs cycle while studying for tests.
Of camping trips to Goblin Valley and hiking Mt. Timpanogos for the sunrise.
Of finding out they were going to have a baby. Of renovating the cottage and drywalling a closet into a room.
Of going to football games and teaching their son that a lion says "roar" but a cougar says "rah, rah, rah rah rah!"
Of hating grad school and getting accepted to the MAcc program and getting through their first busy season. Of walking around campus, watching the seasons change, and kissing under the same tree 7 years later. Of finally graduating and moving out into the real world. Of more busy seasons, and bills, and buying their first house. Of finding out that despite the Larsen boy genes they were having a baby girl.
Of church callings and primary kids, of reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" until they both had it memorized. Of making the switch from man-to-man to zone defense and being forever outnumbered by their kids. Of pulling a tiny baby girl out of the water and gazing into her eyes for the first time.
Of hopes and dreams and glimpses of the future.
Sometimes, she can hardly believe that the boy she met ten years ago really was THE boy. Her boy. And she wouldn't change a thing.
Dear Eric,
I can't believe it's been 10 years since that first non-date. I look at pictures of the boy I fell head over heels for at 18 and I still feel butterflies. I watch our children play and I smile at the life we have built together so far. It's cliche, but I really do love you more everyday for all the memories and the ups and downs we've gotten through together. Thank you for keeping me. Forever by your side sounds just about perfect to me, even if your guitar spends most of the time sitting unused in the corner.
All my love,
Your very own Meg
