Every Epic Love Story, Chapter One; The Meet Cute (Or Boy Meets Girl)

Every Epic Love Story, Chapter One; The Meet Cute, or Boy Meets Girl.

I’ve been threatening to tell this story for years, the story of how Mrs. L and I got to be a couple. Well, I’ve been living the story for decades. Perhaps promising is a better word. It is a good time, I think. My own children will be moving through the process of finding, learning about, and choosing someone to be with. I want them to know our story.

We met in September of 1985. But like every epic love story, it begins much earlier than the beginning.

It began when we were teenagers and found a common (though we didn’t know it at the time) love of Science Fiction and Fantasy, books and movies both.

It began when we became aware of our own parents’ relationships, and cultivated a desire on our own part to be with someone else.

It began when we both applied to Brigham Young University.

I believe it may have begun before we were born.

So . . . there are a lot of places it began. But I could spend all day drifting in circles, musing about the abstract and metaphysical nature of beginnings. So, to the chase.

The relevant facts are;
both grew up reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy
both went to BYU (me in 1985, Mrs. L in 1984)
both wanted very much to do get married and be happy
both are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

So, August 1985. I spent weeks exhaustively reviewing BYU’s catalog, picking the perfect classes for me. I filled in and erased the little chart in the course catalog I got in the mail until the paper disintegrated (Ha! Imagine the poor old timey students with their pencils and erasers...). Mom gave me one salient piece of advice I still remember; pick the classes that work for you. The sub-text of that instruction was; don’t be an idiot, you should only be in class after 11am!

So I had it all lined up. Two AP tests cleared me from the requirement of taking some basic English and Social Studies classes, so I dove right in with English 295; Shakespeare! I’m in college now, time for the big, meaty stuff!

But my first day, I had the at-the-time-it-didn’t-seem-so-fortunate fortune of having my Shakespeare class cancelled the very first day I attended. Have you ever shown up for something, and had a big sign written across the board, “DUE TO A HEART ATTACK, YOUR PROFESSOR IS NOT TEACHING THIS SEMESTER”? Is that a sign or what?

Please review fact number 1; I self-identified as a big SF fan. During the week before classes, while freshman are being directed all over campus, getting oriented (orientated? orientationed? You know, familiarized) I found the science fiction section of the BYU Bookstore. In it, I discovered an entire bookshelf filled with copies of a student-published science fiction magazine, The Leading Edge. I bought one of each issue that they had on the shelf. I read in the editor’s page on one (another in a series of remarkable moments; believe me I had never, ever read the editor’s page in any magazine before, ever) that in Fall of 1985, BYU was offering a seminar class on Great English Authors that would feature J.R.R. Tolkien. So, naturally, once my Shakespeare class got cancelled, I knew what the replacement would be.

I was way out of my depth in that class. This English 495R is a senior seminar, for real students, real students of English who know how to write scholarly papers. For it to focus on an author presumes of the students that they’ve read the author’s work, multiple times, that they’ve formed opinions about patterns, sub-texts, and so on.

Me, I was a goofy freshman who saw the old roto-scope animation Lord of the Rings movies, and started to read the trilogy once. I think. Definitely swimming in the deep end to think I could take that class and manage.

Fortunately, I was put in a small group with the very author of that Leading Edge Editor’s note which prompted me to take the class. Something inspired him to invite me to come and volunteer for his beloved magazine.

So on that first Saturday in October, 1985, I walked into the Leading Edge office in the basement of the JKHB building. The staff meeting had to do with deadlines, stories, advertising, programs. They put out a magazine every semester, and right then were in the middle of reviewing the submissions. I was surprised that the gender division was roughly equal, but was acutely aware that all the girls there were smarter and more mature than me. I was a young freshman, only 17. So in an abstract way, I enjoyed being in the midst of my peers, with lots of people (girls!) who liked something that I liked too.

At the end, the Editor from my Tolkien class assigned me to be on the marketing staff, and introduced me to my boss. Jenny. She had gorgeous long brown hair, amazing golden-brown eyes, an infectious laugh, a pretty smile. She was by far the best-looking girl on the staff. Everything about her was glorious, lyrical, beautiful.

Way out of my league. I was hopelessly lost in a spectacular freshman crush.

The relevant elements now that I look back on it, almost 25 years later, are that I felt a powerful physical attraction to her, a profound social identification with her, a caring, almost care-taking desire to make her happy. As my marketing boss, as a person. As a woman. I talked with her for maybe five minutes, knew I would never have the courage to say anything about attractive I thought she was, but I knew I liked her.

And that was it for a couple of months. I went to class, came to Leading Edge meetings, occasionally saw her, would get assignments (like putting up posters around campus), did my best to stay afloat at school.

I didn’t even know her last name.

The details came later, a delicious gradual reveal.

When I was in school, one of my favorite Professors was teaching a methodology class, and expressed his certainty that there was no perfect way to do the thing he was teaching us. He was glad we didn’t have to all be the same, “If we were all the same, then we’d all want to married to my wife!”

I don’t think there is a perfect way that true love happens. Everyone who knows me is aware that I have a strong faith. I believe in God. I believe he is aware of us and loves us with a perfect paternal affection. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has at its head a man I believe speaks as a prophet on the earth, just like those Old Testament prophets. One prophet, Spencer W. Kimball has said,

It is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.

I don't have a strong opinion about the celestial mechanics behind who meets who, who is "supposed" to marry who. But I do have an inkling now, decades later, that I was supposed to meet Jenny.

And that everything that came after, was supposed to.

To be continued... in chapter 2