Let's talk about one of my most embarrassing moments, shall we?

Lovebirds, Fall 2006

Yes, let's. I have certainly done a lot of embarrassing things in my lifetime, but only a select few have left me rattled for more than a few minutes. This one went straight to the top.

I returned from my mission in August 2006 and moved back to Provo a few weeks later to begin my final semester at BYU. Dave was also in Provo at the time. We had dated off-and-on before my mission and were definitely off when I left, although we decided to write each other occasionally. While I was gone, he tried to get married and I tried to forget him. Neither one really worked.

So, like a smart guy, Dave welcomed me back to town after my mission and asked me out for a lunch date. I don't think either of us was really hoping to start dating again; that was in the past. Mostly we wanted to meet on our own terms and avoid awkwardly running into each other at a party or in the grocery store, as was bound to happen eventually.

We had a fun time at lunch. It got me thinking about him again, of course. And since I had never really stopped being in love with him, I couldn't help but contact him again. I think we saw each other a few more times and had a lot of fun, and then I got scared again. Please don't ask me to explain the hows or whys of this, but I decided that I needed to tell him no, never mind, this is never going to work and I can't see you again. So I told him we needed to talk, and that's essentially the message I delivered.

At this point I should have been a little embarrassed for issuing such a preemptive declaration, but I wasn't because I didn't realize we were in such different head spaces at the time. While I had been gone for 19 months and had essentially pressed the pause button on our relationship in some respects, he had been dating and having new experiences and, well, moving on in a way that I simply couldn't while I wasn't dating or even thinking about dating anyone else. Of course Dave was very kind about it all, because that's the kind of guy he is, but he basically told me, "Thanks, but I hadn't even been thinking that far ahead anyway."

Later on, I was feeling awful about our discussion and eventually decided I had made a big mistake. After a lot of agonizing and soul-searching, I realized that I really was in love with Dave on many levels and needed to give our relationship a chance to thrive before writing it off altogether. One night when I was tossing and turning in bed and just couldn't sleep because I had too much on my mind, I decided to send him an e-mail and revoke my earlier statements. So I did. And I also poured out my heart and confessed my love and explained why I had been oh-so-wrong and asked him to think about dating me again. Pressing "send" was one of the hardest things I had ever done in my life. It really took guts. But I did it and went to sleep feeling so much happier and lighter.

Unfortunately, Dave had decided to take me at my word that we really needed to cut off contact with each other. Enter his love for figuring out tricks with Gmail. He decided to have any e-mails from me automatically forwarded to his roommate. That way he wouldn't even be aware of any communication from me, but in the event that something truly important happened, his roommate could screen the messages and let him know.

Let's just say that his roommate forwarded my e-mail straight to Dave and said, "I think you should read this one." And I really, truly, wanted to fall in a hole and be buried alive when I found out. Six and a half years later, I'm over it enough that I'm telling you this story . . . but I still can't bear to even look at that e-mail, much less read it again or really even think about the specifics of what I wrote.