Farewell, Elder!

I feel somewhat confused, conflicted, and oddly at peace.

Ty's farewell was today, and a couple weeks ago, he asked me

if I would come.  At first, I said I wasn't planning on it,

but he asked me again, so I decided I'd be nice and go. 

Last night, I was talking to my parents about it, and of course, my dad

said "I wouldn't go if I were you. You're just giving him another way

to twist the knife."

But I said "Of the things I know for sure about him, that's not like him

to do that." 

He just kinda gave me this look like "Ok, whatever. Your funeral."

When I was getting ready to go this morning, I found that I was a lot more

nervous than I had anticipated. And as I drove over to his church, my heart 

began to pound. 

I'm still not sure why I was so nervous. Arguably, the worst part of the whole

experience was that as soon as I walked into the chapel, one of his family

saw me, and then they all stared at me like I was an elephant. 

I chose to ignore them and stared at the wall until I found the courage

to ask an older woman if I could sit beside her on the bench. 

I was right in his line of sight, so I looked at the floor until the back curtain

opened and I saw a vacant seat right beside a door, and I all but ran to it.

I had to get out of there fast once he was done speaking anyway, so 

I figured it was the best option. And, lucky for me, his face was hidden

behind a poinsettia plant in this new spot, so I didn't feel as awkward.

I ventured to look at the program, and saw that he was assigned to speak last, and

I did a bit of a mental face-palm. That would make me late for Stake Conference

for my ward, which would mean I'd most likely miss my brother being

presented as an Elder in front of the stake. 

The meeting was the same as all meetings, they made announcements, 

and the sacrament was passed, and afterward, one of the older priests spoke

for a few minutes, then they changed the order. Ty was going to speak

first after all. 

His talk was good, and I was impressed by how well he delivered it, but

he surprised me. Greatly, in fact.

His subject was the to talk about the reasons why he wants to serve a mission,

and he said that he's always known since the time he was a little kid that he

wanted to serve, but he didn't exactly know why. 

But then he said, "until one night, I went to a play at this little theater called the

Valley Center Playhouse,"

and my face immediately flushed.

"called Mission: the Musical. In this play, the main boy was going on a mission, 

but he was in the same boat as me, he didn't really know why. He was

going for all the wrong reasons. Not exactly wrong, but you know. He thought 

he had to go for his dad, or his mom, or for his girlfriend, but 

later on in the play, he was reading in the scriptures, and he finally found his reason

for serving, and that was for the people."

The rest of his talk was somewhat uncomfortable for me, because

I could not figure out for the life of me why he wanted me to come so badly.

Did he want me to hear that something we did as a couple helped him

in his efforts to find his reason to go on a mission?

I still can't fathom why.

I have yet to go back and say a real good-bye to him, and I'm somewhat terrified.

I don't know what I'll say, or what he'll say to me. 

Part of me doesn't want to find out.

Mostly just because I don't want him to say anything like "If things don't work with

so and so (his current girlfriend), I'd like to try again."

What would I say to that?

I somewhat decided what I would say to that, but coming to it now, 

I have no idea. 

I guess I'll find out in a few hours... 

 I don't know whether to feel relieved to "be rid of him" after Wednesday or

sad. I don't know. 

I've never really let go of him since we broke up over a year ago. 

I'm going to have the next 18 months completely free of him.

Maybe I need that.