10 days to 10 years {Day 4}

The next few days I watched him pour over his lines in complete concentration.  After his flirtatious comments during our rehearsals eventually subsided by the director's request, I could tell he might actually be serious about the role he was quickly casted in. 

One morning when he saw me at breakfast he asked if we could go over our lines together.  I was rude and hurried away, but I wasn't completely unfeeling--so later I came back and apologized and planned a time for us to do so. I finally realized that he wasn't actually trying to ruin my college soon to be Broadway career.  I could see that instead, he was trying to do a professional job himself.

My head was often spinning with the stress of the play.  There was so little time until the performance and it was SUCH a huge role.  Try being off stage for only 5 minutes to get changed.  In a cast of 5 people.  With you being the lead.  With the play being about YOU.  It was a tough one. 

I ended up getting sick. Really sick. 

One night after rehearsals I was lying on the couch in physical agony in the same foyer that our hip singing/playing escapade began.  He walked in--in all his suave glory--holding some just-purchased soup cans and orange juice for me.  An incredibly nice gesture and really, I was too tired to fight the flirting and wasn't it about time for me to stop my snobbishness?

He then offered to rub my shoulders.  A totally friendly shoulder rub with a zillion people around so don't get all riled up here... 

And then came the moment that everything changed.  The conversation...that opened my heart.

As we were getting all friendly, he began to tell me a bit about himself and his family. 
He just came home from his mission where he served for two years in Riverside, California.  It was a mission that he loved (and I could tell he served well by how he talked about it)...although it was definitely hard coming back and getting into the swing of things. He had three siblings and a mother.... but sadly, and suddenly, his father was killed in a car accident when Rowdy had only been out on his mission for 2 weeks -- still in the MTC (missionary training center). 

He never went home. 

Instead he stayed...choosing to serve and honor his father.

Suddenly I saw HIM.  Was the only reason I brushed him off his desire to get to know me?  Not only did that seem incredibly selfish now, but I finally realized that he was a man I wanted to get to know.  I mis-judged his confidence with ego. He was someone who impressed me more than any other.  (Sounding a bit Pride and Prejudice-like?  I have always adored Jane Austen.)

And I realized...in the quietest moment of chicken soup and orange juice...that it was time for me to get rid of MY ego and let him into my life.


to be continued...

Rowdy as my husband in the play, "Torvald."

(they can't ALL be funny, people.  But don't worry.  More shocking ones to come.)