Let's get real for a moment

It's time to leave all the silly make out stories aside for a moment while I get serious and explain the Tyson thing.  This is something that rocked me to the core, I try to avoid talking about it.  However, I feel like it's kind of a necessity for me to get this out there so you can sort of understand a little bit about me and what I've been through and why I act the way I do.

Tyson and I met almost four years ago at a party.  We became friends through a mutual friend and started talking a lot.  I was dating a guy at the time but we were living in different states, which made the relationship really hard to maintain.  As I started talking to Tyson more, I began to realize more and more that my boyfriend, Joe, really wasn't someone with a personality substantial enough to keep me interested.  He was kind of bland and effeminate and he never wanted to talk about anything serious.  Our conversations mostly hovered around what we did that day and how much we missed each other.  Whenever I'd bring up something serious, he'd ignore it.  It hurt because I feel like I should be able to talk about serious things that weigh on my mind with my boyfriend.  Because, when it all comes down to it, dating is just practice for marriage, and I want to marry someone I can communicate with.

Tyson showed me how it felt to have someone to trust in.  Because of this eye opening friendship, I ended my relationship with Joe (after giving it a chance once we were living in the same town again...it just didn't work.) Tyson lead me to believe that it's okay to let your walls down and be vulnerable.  We would stay up until 4 in the morning talking about things that we hoped for, things that we feared, and things that we believed in.  He was sarcastic and witty and hesitant to open up to me...but he did.  We quickly became best friends.  While I lived at home, we spent nearly every night together going bowling or watching movies.  When I was at school, there was hardly a moment we weren't texting each other.  To this day, I don't know how I survived that Summer on so little sleep.  I think my normal bed time was somewhere between 3am and 5am.  I've never felt so connected to another person.  He was my soul mate, I was sure of it.

We never had a really physically relationship, mostly because I was away at school most of the time we talked a ton.  I did, however, take a trip home for memorial day.  That was probably one of the best weekends of my life.  We watched movies, snuggled, went to a baseball game, kissed...  It was perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  Aside from that, the only other time we kissed was the night before he left on his mission. We watched Harry Potter 4, held hands, and then kissed goodbye.  He gave me a framed photo of the two of us.  Now, he gave a couple other girls photos, too, including an ex girlfriend.  I was hurt and jealous and distraught, but it didn't really matter that much because he only kissed me and I had two years for him to forget about the other girls.

Despite all that, I kept that photo of the two of us out where I could see it every day for the two years he was gone. I wrote him letters that were pages and pages, just telling him about my roommates and classes and family and work.  I wrote him about my testimony and how impressed I was with his growth while on the mission.  He wrote to me about the experiences he had, people he taught, how he grew closer to his companions.  When he bore his testimony in his letters, I felt the Spirit so strong.  His letters were the bright light for me in a very long, lonely two years.  I copied almost every single one into my journal.  I kind of love letters.

Tyson came home from his mission in January.  I was so anxious and nervous about seeing him, I was literally shaking when I went over to his house to see him for the first time.  He walked me to my car after a night of games with his family and I felt wobbly, with weak knees.  It was so surreal to be with him again, after two years of not seeing him.  I couldn't catch my breath.  When we hugged it was awkward, but I never wanted it to end.  But he was home and we had plenty of time to spend together.  The other two girls he gave photos to?  They were history to me.  One was married with a child, one was at school in Utah.  Tyson was mine to enjoy.

We watched movies, went to parties, spent nights playing games with his family.  I spent a weekend at home alone and he talked on the phone with me at 3 in the morning when I couldn't sleep because I was spooked.  He invited me out to watch his basketball practices and we sat together at institute every week.  That is, until the weekend before his birthday when he went awol.  His responses to texts were evasive and brief.  We had planned to get together, but it didn't happen because he just never followed up with the plans.  On Monday he told me that we'd talk after the institute devotional the next day.  After he spoke about his mission, he sat me down outside (I was super nervous) and he told me that his friend that was going to school in Utah had come into town that weekend and he spent all his time with her.  He said, "I thought I should be the one to tell you in person that she and I are together."

I didn't have much to say.  I had prepared myself for him to not come home and sweep me off my feet, but it still stung.  I cried and said, "Well that sucks.  I'm happy that you're happy with her, but it still kind of sucks to lose."  After awhile of silence I said, "I have to go, why don't you call me when you feel like talking." and I left without looking at him.  I went home and cried to my mom.I was disappointed, but it wasn't really the end of the world.  I can't win everything.

But really, I can't win at all.  A couple weeks later Tyson called me up after I called him out on ignoring me.  He told me a lot of things, including that he doesn't feel like we have any sort of friendship unless we're flirting.   He said, "I think the hole in your life where I was is much bigger than the hole in mine where you were.  Because there's not really a hole.  I don't miss you.  I don't feel like I need you in my life."  At first I was devastated, but then I started feeling angry.  I was crying silently the whole conversation, but I was pissed.  I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  This was Tyson, my Tyson.  The one I'd shared some of the most wonderful experiences of my life with, and he was acting as if I meant nothing to him.  He told me he felt like he could never fully trust me, never fully let me in.  And then he had the balls to tell me he felt like he owed it to me to try and be friends anyway.  That was my breaking point.  I pretty much told him I don't want his pity friendship and hung up.  And that was that.  No more Leslie and Tyson.  No more letters, no more ball games, no more movie nights.  No more text messages, phone calls, or sitting together at events.  I've never felt so empty in my entire life.

Thinking about Tyson and how elated he made me feel just heightens the anger I feel about the way he treated me.  I'm devastated to think that I wasted so much time thinking about him and avoiding other relationships because of him.  I almost feel like he ruined me.  He used me and tossed me aside without warning.  I want to vomit.  I hate him.