Our Story

Be my knight in battered armor.

Be my one and true disguise. 

Hide me from both pain and beauty. 

Guard me from unholy demise. 

For in you I hold faith.

I hold hope, and I hold love. 

I hold the word of you in heart. 

My one, my true, my God.

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Ever have one of those days where you just really, really have no idea exactly how you write, or draw what you do? That's what that was. I looked at a picture of my friend in a suit of old, rustic knight's armor and that piece just spilled into my head and then onto this digital paper. I haven't written a poem for a while; long enough that I actually forgot the rhythm to iambic pentameter. (Not okay for me, I like thinking I know the basics of most poetry.) Then with that little glance my muse gland was like: bam! Have a topic to write about.

But seriously, awesome spiritually induced poetry aside, I'm having a really hard time dealing with the idea of Derek leaving soon. I've spent most nights praying and reading my scriptures until I finally feel more calm and manage to fall asleep. Because of this insomnia, I have been pondering a few things. One of them being the ability to overlook people you've met face-to-face. And because of this pondering, you all (assuming anyone is actually are out there) get to hear Derek and I's story:

Derek and I "met" about a year and a half ago through my ex boyfriend. My ex frequently hung out with a very small, select, group of people. None of whom I knew beforehand. One of them was Derek. More often than not, I would show up to my ex's house and would find out that we were going to be hanging out with all of these people here or there. After a month I noticed that we were consistently missing a person on Sundays: Derek. It took them all of "Well it's 'cause he's Mormon and-" for me to understand what was happening. After all, I was catholic, respectively, at the time and understood the sabbath day and the importance of keeping it holy.

That doesn't necessarily mean I did.

In fact, I had fallen so far away from Catholicism, that I viewed it more as an education form of study, rather than spiritual. I mean, I could tell you anything about the happenings of the catholic church, and a good lot of the history too, but I couldn't tell you of any revelations or guidance he had given me over the years. I had been having a really hard few years, and hearing of Derek's faith made me feel almost lacking in a part of myself. As if I was just walking around waiting for a blessing, without actually putting forth any effort to receive one. Really, it was just selfish.

Not too long later, Derek and I actually pulled off getting each other's cell phone numbers, and texted one another everyday. Nothing gushy or romantic; there was no sense of immediately falling in some sort of crazy, stupid love. Just that fresh feeling of getting to know a new friend personally, instead of socially. I remember the first day I was the one to invite him to hang out, he had been moving huge stones to make a pathway at his house with his dad the day before and insisted on taking a hot shower before coming to meet my ex (who I was still with at the time) and I. By the time he had left his house my ex had decided he didn't want to hang out and left suddenly. About 5 minutes later, Derek pulled in my driveway and, against my normal relationship standards of not being alone with another man, we hung out. I felt bad, he had drove 11 miles to meet us, and I didn't want to send him back because my ex was being hormonal.

This ended up causing a rift in my relationship. One that obliterated my ex's trust in me and ultimately began the waning of my feelings for him. And the escalation of the one's I began gaining for Derek. A month passed of hanging out with Derek, alone, because we kept having others cancel on us. And being two people who are not ones to miss solid plans we followed through. This chain of events had led to numerous arguments with my ex, and resolutely was the main reason I ended our relationship. That, and he was leaving for the military, I didn't want to be with a man who would be gone all the time. A few weeks later Derek and I attended a Halloween party together in our sort of mock-dating way. Next thing I know I get a picture message that reads: "I ended liking you more than I meant to." It was the most amazing picture I have ever seen. And I think somewhere between then and Christmas I was hooked.

And I have been ever since.

The reason I brought that story up is because of the first line. The one where I put met in quotations. Because Derek and I actually met in my sophomore year of high school, when I was 15. (I'll be twenty soon)We hung around the same people, sat at the same lunch table, and even played video games together, with a group of people, in the same room on a fairly regular basis. We even attended the same Junior High School. Derek and I actually spoke to each other too. But we never remembered each other. Not one of those times. So we say we "met" almost two years ago, but in reality it was almost five. And we agree with full confidence that we finally met for real after we had gone through the trials that the Lord had prepared for us. So that we were ready for one another. 

And I think there are many people with stories like that. Whether it be a friend or a lover, I wholly believe that the Lord chooses these very special people to undergo this amazing fruition so that they may have a sort of absolute understanding of the meaning behind their relationship. That they are not just a passerby in that person's life, but someone so absolutely special and linked to that person, that they first had to prepare.