Wow, it's been a while

I am not sure where to start. This past week has been one of the most confusing, frustrating times of my life. I have had emotional highs and lows that make my some of my mission experiences pale in comparison. I don't know how many details I can go into here, for two reasons: first, there are a lot of things I am still trying to figure out myself; and second, there are things going through my head that relate to my relationship with Molly, and it would be wrong of me to post them here before I have said them to her in person. But I will try to get a little bit of it out here in the blog.

My date with Molly last weekend was great. When I got home that night, I thought it was the best evening I had ever had. I was even happy to have met one of her old friends, Joe, who we ran into at the Creamery.

It wasn't until Monday that I started to think maybe that part wasn't so good. I was at Macey's picking up some corn meal for my mom, and I ran into Joe again. I couldn't remember his name at first, but I recognized him, so I did that thing that you do when you forget someone's name, throwing around a lot of "buddy" and "guy" and "killer" and stuff. As Joe and I made small talk in front of the marshmallows, I sensed that he was upset with me. At first, I thought it was because I forgot his name, so I came clean. I told him, "I'm sorry, I don't remember your name. When I met you, it was my first date with Molly in a couple years, and I was pretty distracted." He told me his name, but he seemed even more upset.

I kept trying the small talk, and I asked him how he knew Molly. His answer has caused me a lot of consternation over the past several days: "We were dating until last month."

And now I am very confused. I have a billion things running through my head. I never told Molly to wait for me, but she had never mentioned this Joe fellow to me until we ran into him, so I can't help thinking that she is keeping things from me. I wanted to ask Joe if he had held Molly's hand while they were dating, but I couldn't bring myself to ask. I guess a part of me wasn't prepared for the answer.

I spent a couple days in my bedroom after that. I read my scriptures a lot, but I couldn't find anything in them about my situation. Maybe I am losing my spiritual sensitivity. I didn't even shave for those three days, and by the time I came out, I looked like a young Lorenzo Snow. But when I came out, I knew that I needed to talk to Molly, so I called her and asked her to come over.

I don't want to go into too many details about the things that Molly and I talked about, because it is between me and her. She did tell me about Joe, though. (She always refers to him by his full name, Joseph Smith Johnson. It's a little weird, but kind of funny.) They dated for a couple months, but she says it was never serious. She said there was a day or two when she thought she might really like him, but there were things about his upbringing and his background that told her it wasn't right. (He's from southern California, if that helps any.)

So basically, here's how it is: when the week began, I was thinking about the best way to propose to Molly. By the middle of the week, I was quasi-cursing her name ("fetchin' Molly, flippin' Molly, dang-blast-it-all-to-freaking-heck Molly!"). By the end of the week, I am back to thinking she might be the one, but there is still that little twinge of doubt that I am not getting the whole story about Joe.

That's my life for this week.