For the sake of privacy I will refer to my first love as T.J. When I was fifteen going on sixteen, I met him. I had some friends that I met in the Mormon community through another friend, and we were all going to work at Manzanita Speed Way. It was an extra twenty or thirty bucks in your pocket a night and we were all just kids working concessions. Meeting T.J. was like the visual of what love at first site looks like. I just wanted to be around him. He was only a year older than me but he was a giant! If I had a type at that age it was the tall, blue eyes, brown hair, type. I found my six-four, eyes that melted me, light-brown hair guy. He had this confidence about him that made me want to be everything he wanted. We spent the whole night flirting back and forth and it didn't take long for me to do the good ol' number exchange. It didn't take much longer after that for us to start dating.
We were a couple of puppies. Oh man, were we in love. T.J. quickly turned into my world and there were no other planets in this galaxy. Just him, revolving around me, and me revolving around him. I pictured myself married to this guy. We would even talk about marriage often. Of course we did! We were a couple of kids trying to be grown ups. The only downfall in our relationship at the time was, that I lived in Phoenix and he lived in Mesa. It was about a thirty to forty-five minute drive for us. I obviously didn't have a vehicle so getting to Mesa every weekend was a challenge. We talked on the phone all night, every night. Being with T.J. was all I knew.
If you haven't been able to tell already, I'm a people pleaser. It was absolutely no different in this case. I would find any way to get to Mesa every weekend. I was determined to never miss one of his football games, dances, or any weekend for that matter. I would stay at his house, in his room, and he would sleep in his parents room. T.J. was Mormon so the fact that I was even allowed to stay under the same roof is still a shocker to me. Naturally, in a Mormon lifestyle, they want you to date other Mormons. I wasn't exactly what his family was hoping for. They still took me in as his girlfriend with semi-open arms and let us do our thing.
"Our thing" was more than a stretch from what they had in mind. In the Mormon religion the men are expected to go on a mission for two years when they are nineteen. To be eligible for said mission, you must uphold a reputable lifestyle. Having sex before you were married was not considered reputable. In fact, it was considered blasphemous. Him and I both had the best intentions of upholding this standard, but we were just a couple of teenagers with too much alone time. We obviously did not make the cut here.
Being intimate with a Mormon is a serious mental attack! We were always trying not to do it because of his fear of not being able to go on his mission. Then we would fail and it would be an instant guilt trip. Holding that weight on your shoulders at sixteen can be really heavy.
While I was with T.J., I decided to look into becoming Mormon. I read the entire Book of Mormon, I had my first few discussions and I went to church with his family. I was sort of on my way to converting. I probably would have taken the jump too, if things didn't start taking a turn for the worst. Do you remember me telling you I was a people pleaser?
T.J. and I had, had the "if you could have one thing, what would it be" conversation. I don't remember what mine was but I promise you it isn't relevant to this story. I will never forget his, though. He wanted what almost any guy would say he wanted. If you're thinking it, you're probably right. It was my worst nightmare. It was something I was completely foreign to and so unwilling to do. I was such a naive putz. Things didn't go down quite how he'd anticipated but I still wasn't comfortable with any of it. After that weekend, our relationship changed drastically.
He started talking to some girl in his class after that. I was so desperate to be the "cool" girlfriend that I acted like I didn't care. He even kissed her and told me about it and I pretended like everything was fine. I told him something like, "whatever you have to do to figure out what you want". I'm an idiot. I cried for a couple of days. I never told him though. I couldn't explain at the time how badly it hurt me because I didn't want to fight with him. We had never fought before. I was a puppy that had been trained into a show dog. I did whatever he wanted.
I think that everything could have gone on like that for a while if what happened next never occurred. It was winter time, I remember that because we had the fire going in his living room. His parents went to bed and we did what two teenagers do when you leave them alone. Except, we got caught. To this day, that very moment is still the most embarrassing moment of my life. I have never been as scared or shocked as I was in those few memories. I remember her screaming his entire full name at the top of her lungs. I remember us both scrambling to collect ourselves, just praying this wasn't actually happening. I remember her scolding us in the living room. Terrifying.
She drove me home that night, obviously. All the way back to Phoenix. We didn't talk that entire thirty minute drive. I was going through the speech in my head to my father. I wasn't going to let T.J. get in trouble alone. I didn't have to worry about that, though. She walked me to the door and knocked. Like I didn't have the key. My dad answered and she made me tell him what happened. My dad's reaction was surprising. He asked a few questions, then said, "get inside." That was it. We never talked about it again.
After that, we weren't allowed to see each other. It didn't last that long though. Once Christmas came around we were allowed to exchange gifts and spend some time together. It wasn't the same though. Things started becoming different, and then he turned my world upside down with one sentence. "I want to date other people." It wasn't so nonchalant, but the words were still true. He wanted to see what was out there. I was convinced that there was nothing else better out there for him. I didn't see how he thought he was ever going to find something better than what we had. But, because I loved him I didn't argue it. I let him do what he wanted to and we broke up.
It wasn't long before he started calling me to come see him. We hung out here and there and it was o.k. One night we went to a movie with some of his friends. He had his arm around me while they were all getting snacks during the previews. As soon as he saw his friends walk into the theater he took his arm off from around my shoulders. Not smoothly either, abruptly. I had finally gotten to my boiling point. I stormed out of there as fast as I could and went to my car. He followed me, and was just baffled at my reaction.
I went off on him. I told him if he was embarrassed to be with me, then don't invite me to a movie. If you want to see other people, then don't call me. If you think you can do better, than do better! I'm sure there were a few other things I said but point of the story is, I was done. I quickly moved on after that. Like, next day quickly. I learned a new trait about myself that day. When I'm done, I'm done. No looking back or second considerations, I was over it. He called me often trying to get back together and I wasn't having it. In fact, he still calls me to this day.
When we broke up, I took to the single life rather well. Maybe a little too well.
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