I told Dave I am going to type up our love story and he says, “Is that even possible?”
I guess it really isn’t possible to tell anyone’s full story, but I have a bit of time on this drive from Salt Lake to St. George and it is my 22nd anniversary,
Dave was the first boy I ever kissed, I mean truly kissed, with tongue and all. I can picture my kids saying “Ew!!” It was after the first dance of the school year in 8th grade. Dave was a year older than me and eight inches shorter and I was trying to figure out how I would manage to do this where it wasn’t too awkward with me being a whole head taller. I admit I already felt strange as we danced together, but I was use to being taller than most the boys. I was 5’7” in the eight grade- which made Dave 4’ 11”. It will be three years later when he asks me to dance at a club that I notice he is finally taller than me. But, back in Junior High, I was relieved that our kissing heighth difference got worked out by me sitting on the curb and him sitting on top of his skateboard next to me.
My girlfriends at the time set up the kiss. I would find out later that my two friends went to Dave and said, “Karey wants to kiss you. A real kiss.” And then they went to me and said, “Dave wants to have a real kiss with you.” So, as Dave and I were left alone outside on the curb we had our first kiss. He claims I attacked him and that he was only going in for a hug. My memory doesn’t see it that way. Dave says he was startled by my aggressive tongue and that I “fully committed right away, no gradualness.” Truth be told, I am sure I was a terrible kisser and I was alwarys the more aggressive of the two of us. I was nervous and wanted to seem like I knew what I was doing. I guess a good kiss can’t be faked. I didn’t know it was as bad as it was back then and was just happy I got it over with. (thank goodness I got better- by kissing half the teenage boys in the valley over my teenage years- your welcome, Dave, ha!)
Two weeks later, Dave passed me a breakup note inbetween classes. It was a nice note, he wanted to be friends, but he needed to hang out more with his friends and skateboard. “Well,” I thought, “His friend Garon is cute.” I liked a different boy everytwo weeks back then anyway.
I remember the first time I saw Dave. He was the new boy in school and it was the end of my 7th grade (his 8th). He was ahead of me and my friends as we were walking back to the home ec and shop classes. My friends had been talking about how gorgeous the new kid in school was and I hadn’t seen him yet. One of my friends yelled his name really loudly so that he would turn around for me to have a look at him and then she jumped behind me making it look like I was the one who called his name. The look on Dave’s face when he saw me was really strange. He looked startled and then overcome and like he recognized me and then almost fearful as he turned back around. All I could think was, “this boy is weird.” I would come to find out that at the moment Dave recognized me as his future wife. He knew me. His spirit told him who I was. I can’t imagine what that must have felt like as an eighth grader.
After we broke up we still ended up seeing each other over through out the years. We seemed to run into each other at local band shows, punk rock clubs, dances and concerts. We had a lot of the same friends in common too, so when he and I were the only sober people at parties we would visit together. I thought Dave was one of the coolest people I know, but I didn’t have a big attraction to him. I would come to find out that that was a blessing from God. I am usually pretty tenacious when I find out something is right for me, and it would not have been a good idea for me to miss out on experiences at such a young age because of knowing Dave was right for me.
In ninth grade my english teacher gave the class an assignment to write about our ideal future. It could be about anything we wanted to focus on. I decided to write what my soulmate and future husband would be like. I describe him in great detail. I imagined he had blue eyes and dark hair and would play guitar around the campfire with me and the kids. He would be smart and socially conscious and very open minded. I even described how he would think politically and how he would treat poeple. I described what our relationship would be like and how we would be able to talk about anything and everything. I described the adventures we would go on and how he would love the outdoors. I knew that he would notice all things beautiful in the world, like sunsets and birds and babies and art. And I even knew what kind of a dad he would be. I knew we would laugh, a lot. It may have seemed idealistic and sappy to some, but I decided when I was very young after watching all the crappy marriages around me that I would never have that experience.
When I received the paper back with my grade, Ms. Lofgren had given me an A+ on the assignment and then wrote with red ink, “Hah! Good luck finding this guy!” Her comment took me aback and I told my friend, “Guess what Ms. Lofgren wrote on my assignment? I think she must be a scorn women.” My friend asked to read what I wrote to see why our teacher would write that and after she read it said, “I know who you are describing. You are describing Dave Wlliams.” “What!?,” I vehemently denied that. I didn’t even find Dave Williams that cute after all. No way. Nahuh. No how. My friend just laughed and would tease me here and there about it for years.
It didn’t help that some strange things happened between Dave and I to assuage me of the fear that my friend was right. One of those times was at a dance club when I walked around a corner to see Dave kissing another girl. My stomache dropped. I felt devastated. I could not understand why. I even went and sat alone for a moment trying to explore why I felt the way I felt in my body, the physical illness at seeing Dave with his girlfriend. Afterall, I had a boyfriend that I really liked at the time. I never made sense of it, so I just let it go.
Another year at this same dance club, Dave’s friends came up to me and told me to I should ask Dave to dance. They would say stuff to me often like that and claim Dave always talked about me. I felt this was kind of silly, because Dave never called me and always seemed a bit quiet around me and, dang it, if he wanted to dance with me then why didn’t he ask me himself. I would find out later that he tried to keep a bit of distance from me because he knew we would be together someday anyway. In fact, his parents told me that they would ask him why he doesn’t date that “Karey girl” who he talks about and he would tell them, “I am going to marry her someday, but I can’t date her yet.”
One time I gave in and asked Dave to slow dance with me. Part way through the song this electrical shock current went through us. It felt like a static electricity shock, not only a physical one, but like it shocked my very spirit! After it happened Dave and I let our hands drop from one another and just looked at each other and walked in different directions. The song hadn’t even finished yet! Five years later, when we were dating before we got married, I asked him if he remembered that happening. The only words I could get through were, “Do you remember when we were dancing and that elect-” when he cut me off and said with emphatic recognition, “electrical current…” He wondered if only he had felt that. We later read once in a book where a leader in our church had had that same kind of shock and described it happening to him because his spirit recognized the other person’s spirit. We agree whole-heartedly, but it sure was strange and cool feeling!
And then there was the time when I need a date to the Sadie Hawkins dance. All my friends had one and I didn’t know who to ask. For once, there wasn’t some guy I was interested in. lol. I was a junior in High School and Dave was a Senior. This girl named…I will call her Jan… came up to me to talk to me about who I was taking. Everyone knew that Jan had been in love with Dave Williams since eight grade.
Jan: “Karey, do you have a date to Sadie’s yet.”
Me: “No, I need to find one though. All my friends have theirs and time is running out.”
Jan: “You should take Dave Williams.”
Me, very flabberghasted by her suggestion: “What!? Why don’t you ask him? You like him!”
Jan, very huffy: “You are going to marry him one day, so you mind as well take him to this dance.”
Then Jan stomped off. And, I thought, what a great idea. I will ask Dave. (As a side note, I also found out years later when telling Dave about this encounter with Jan, that he had told her he wanted to marry me or someone like me to get her to leave him alone.)
So, now, I had to figure out how to ask Dave to the dance. I arranged with his sister Joy, who was a year younger than I, to let me into his bedroom when he wasn’t home to decorate it. I had cut out foot prints out of construction paper to lay all around his floor and bought some Hershey kisses to set on top of them and made a sign that read, “Now that I kissed the ground you walk on, will you go to Sadie Hawkins with me? Love, Karey.”
When Joy let me in to his room, I felt a little like I was invading his privacy. I noted all of the Thrasher Magazine pictures on the wall, the pictures of bands, and glow in the dark stars and then I saw…pictures of me! By his bed! Dave had a couple of pictures of me by his bed. One was a picture from a school newspaper where I had my arm around another guy. He had cut the guy out of the photo. It wasn’t creepy, like a stalker, it actually felt kind of sweet. He also had some pictures up of some of his other friends, but it was obvious that mine were front and center.
Dave and I had an awesome time at the dance. We went with a big group of people to Chuck E Cheese and ate pizza and played games. He let me win at air hockey, which ticked me off when I found it out later. I was too much of a competitor and that made me feel condescended too and patronized. Plus, I can beat him fair and square sometimes. We also went to the planetarium, which was one of Dave’s favorite places and we watched Lazer Zepplin. Still, though, I didn’t like him more than a friend and nothing really came of our date.
Dave, graduated a year before me and I didn’t see him that much after that. After I graduated, I went on a road trip from Utah to Georgia. I was reading this book called, “The River Why” about a young adult who was finding his passion and purpose and love. I was praying a lot and thinking of my future. Suddenly, I couldn’t stop thinking about Dave. Non stop, he was on my mind. I figured I was suppose to call him and tell him what a great person I think he is. I actually always felt like I really “knew” who Dave was, even when I didn’t. He was familiar and comforting. It would be easy to call him and let him know I was thinking about him. The phone rang several times and I hung up! Why did I chicken out? I was not a chicken when I should talk to someone.
That same day, Dave was talking to my friend Tawnya who was dating his friend Nate. He was lamenting how everyone was pairing off and he wished he had someone like the two of them had each other. They asked Dave why he just didn’t call me already!? The concept kind of shook Dave, because he had spent so much time trying to stay away from me. So, he called me up. My sister answered the phone and said I was in Georgia with some guy (who was only a friend, it was an unromantic trip!). Anyway, Dave, defeated, hung up the phone.
The next night the realization came to me. I called my mom up at two in the morning. I knew she would be up because she worked night shifts.
Me: “Mom, I am going to marry Dave Williams.”
Mom: “I know.”
Me: “Well, okay, then.”
I knew I was super young and I didn’t know when this all would happen, but I started knowing he was my future. I didn’t even know if I would be attracted to him! Which was very disturbing to me. Could I come to feel that way? I mean I did feel that way in Junior High about him….
I arranged to see him the day I got home from Georgia through Tawnya (see, I go for it when I know it is right). We went to his house to play pool. When I looked at him, everything in me came a live and I couldn’t believe how incredibly attractive he was! It was like a blinder had been removed and I could see him clearly.
We dated for seven months and then he left for two years on an LDS mission and I went to school. We never agreed to wait for each other, we thought that was not smart, but I still knew I would end up with him. We wrote weekly for two years. He came home on Jan 3rd, and proposed Jan. 13th at my surprise birthday party and we got married on Feb 16th. The fact that it was so fast was not in our plan! We were looking to do it a year later or during a big break from college. However, we knelt down and prayed with our parents about the date and all I had to do was address God and the words “February 16th” were spoken clearly into my mind. I still continued with the prayer trying to pretend I didn’t hear that we were suppose to get married in a month! I was working full time and going to school full time and how could a wedding get pulled off in a month! After I said “amen” we all looked at each other. I spoke the date and everyone visibly relaxed. My mom knew it was soon and so did Dave’s parents and Dave got the answer of February. I didn’t even know what day of the week February 16th was on or if the Salt Lake Temple would have any availability! But, of course, God knows what he is doing. It was a Saturday, which was perfect for family that had to travel into town and the temple was open with a slot available that day.
Saying yes to Dave was the best thing I ever did. There is a lot more to our love story… the good, the challenging, and the beautiful. We have grown and stretched through so much. We have been deconstructed and rebuilt over and over again, as such is the nature of life, but one thing always stays constant- that we choose to keep saying yes to us.
I wish I could tell Ms Lofgren, that, yes, indeed I did have good luck finding the guy.