Selection Series aka late teen healing

I just finished reading the series of books by Kiera Cass, called The Selection.  It is a dystopian society book based on a future America, but with a royal Bachelor twist.  All you Bachelor fans out there, this is right up your alley. As I read about this 17 year old red head and her emotional antics with Prince Maxon, I found myself getting so frustrated with her... until I remembered myself at 17.

 How would I have acted if the guy I was 'dating' was also 'dating' other girls, trying to find his wife, since he had never really been allowed to meet people other than royal house guests.

When I was 17, I uprooted myself from my dramatic (i.e. SMALL)  high school by graduating early, and from my dramatic (i.e. falling apart) household by getting accepted to BYU early.  On a liberated high I was ready to embrace my freedom from the social anxiety that high school had caused, and what did I do. I got a boyfriend.

To tell you that I was immediately attracted to him would be silly, because I was immediately attracted to just about everyone of the male sex at the time. We met when I convinced my roomate to join me during 'visiting hours' of the floors of guys in R hall, that were assigned to be in our Ward (congregation) for church.  These visiting hours where the only times during the week that females were allowed on the floors of the all male dormitories. We were pretty much the first to show up, such as was my 17 year old excitement.

He almost missed meeting me as I stuck my head through his open door and said 'Hi' as he was reading on his bed. He gave me a completely dumbfounded look of someone who knew girls were not allowed. I pretty much smiled at the shock I gave and ran away, back to my companion.

We started dating soon after, like really soon.  I don't remember our first date, but I do remember kissing him after on the inter-mural field. After dating for a few weeks I found out that one night that I couldn't join him, he had hung out with some mutual friends and had 'hooked up' with one of my best friend's roomates (a totally unworthy one at that, based on the crazy drama she produced in their apartment). I didn't piece it together until the next day when we BOTH accompanied him to a devotional at our friend Cory's ward. 'Why did you bring BOTH of them?' she wrote in a note to him, that I happened to see... Anyway, I came home crushed not to be his one and only.

I cried to my roomates, and especially to my basement-mates, my girls who lived in the downstairs apartment. They had one of our guy friends over, who consoled me that this boy did not deserve me, and should not have broken my heart. I appreciated the fact that he was more than willing to take this boy's place, even though I didn't like him in that way.

This boy and I made up later that night, or the next ( I can't quite remember, my life being way too emotional to be contained in a diary), in the laundry room of our building. Pretty much the only place where you can be alone with someone of the opposite sex.  Me in tears, probably not communicating very well what I was feeling. But for the time, I was chosen.

We continued to date for the next year and we had a blast.  In the spring we both moved out of the dormatories, I moved  in with my best friend and he moved in with his sister (whose wedding I attended). I like his sister and her husband.  I even went on a family vacation to California.

Through that year he let me vent and heal from a lot of frustrations, and fears, and insecurities.  He helped me to trust in another person, and made me feel loved.

He left on a mission to South Africa for two years and I was, to be honest, a terrible correspondent.

By the time he returned I had been very involved in my major, had gone on a study abroad to London, and was ready to head on my next adventure, a mission of my own. We tried to make it work, but he knew was leaving, and he wanted to date other people. To him, so that he could make sure I was the one. For me, because he thought he could find someone better.  I let him go.  I knew that I wanted to be seen by my spouse the end all of end alls. The best of the best, and the only one worth looking for.

Oh how much emotional energy was put into that relationship.  But I probably should have known it wasn't going to work out.  His 'angel' mother didn't like me.

Below is a bad scan of a blurry picture.  Jen, Heather, me, Beccy, Kim and Arianne in front (sorry about whatever is stuck to your hair, Arianne)