Wait, What? (My Side of the Story)

I'm letting him use our favorite picture of us this time because I'm a nice person.
So I'll settle for this one of us laughing. Even though you can't see his eyes.
Look at that smile though! And doesn't he look fabulous in uniform?
Love ya hon! ;)

Once upon a time, I got engaged and everyone was taken by surprise including me.

Hold up. What? What do you mean it took YOU by surprise Anna?

Well. Let me tell you.

Approximately 28 years ago, a boy named Jonathan Laulusa was born. Exactly four years and two months later, a girl named Annaliese Kretchman was born.

And the rest is history.

Okay, okay, there's more to it than that. I'm just not even sure where to start.

Let's start here.

I have PTSD. (Duh, we know that already).

I have PTSD, and so dating is basically terrifying for me. (We already knew that too).

I have PTSD, and so dating was basically terrifying for me until all of a sudden, it wasn't anymore.

And that didn't happen when I started dating Jonathan. Or my last boyfriend. It didn't stop being scary until Heavenly Father kicked me in the pants.

Wait.

What?

Let me legit explain now that I've obfuscated enough.

So Jonathan and I met during a service activity for choir. He was the one driving everyone.

The second interaction was similar, only with more tears.

We were driving to go volunteer at a food bank and I was sad. My awesome ex boyfriend had just broken up with me, and so all of the sadness that had been kept partially at bay while we were dating was flooding over me again. The song playing on the radio really set me off, and I asked Jonathan (who as far as I knew knew nothing about me or my story) to change the song.

That's the night that we started talking. He basically asked me if I was okay, told me that he noticed that I was struggling, etc. And I just unloaded everything on him. This random choir kid that I didn't know literally at all. And he was super nice about all of it.

We hung out once that semester. He offered to teach me how to make bomb homemade cinnamon rolls and I accepted... And immediately was nervous about it. It wasn't a date, but the thought of spending one-on-one time with a guy that I didn't know was asking too much of my anxiety. So I had a friend come and just be there in the kitchen with us while Jonathan was there so that we weren't alone.

And that was pretty much it for Fall semester. We made cinnamon rolls once, messaged each other a bit over Thanksgiving break, and talked a teensy bit in passing at choir rehearsals.

I'm not sure if this was before or after we first met, but at some point in the semester, Jonathan gave a speech in choir.

Every semester, my amazing choir director gives a porn talk during rehearsal. This started the semester that my ex-fiance was arrested and has occurred every semester since.

So this past Fall semester, Jonathan was the one who started the conversation. He dressed really nicely that day, stood in front of all of us, and asked people to give their impressions of him. Hands went up and people gave lots of really positive impressions. Jonathan then went on to talk about how everyone has things about them that are not easy to see. Struggles with depression, suicidal tendencies, etc. He said that we looked at him and saw all of these good things, but would never guess that he had a 17 year struggle with pornography. And then the porn talk went on from there, as well as talking about unknown trials in general.

So I knew from the start that Jonathan is a (now recovering) porn addict.

Moving on.

Jonathan continued to message me quite a bit over Christmas break. He always seemed concerned about how I was doing and it was pretty easy to talk to him. I honestly still felt a bit of an aversion to him though simply because I felt like he might be starting to like me and I didn't want him to because the thought of someone that I didn't know before everything happened liking me scared me a lot.

At some point during break, I posted on Facebook that I was looking for a ride back to Rexburg for me and my brother. Jonathan commented that he could swing by "on his way back from Oregon" and pick us up.

Um. We were in Utah. Not exactly on the way home from Oregon.

So I told him that I'd keep looking.

Someone else commented that they might be able to drive us, but Jonathan ended up being to one to do it in the end.

After a four(ish) hour long drive with him, I decided to let him into my friend group. (Not that it takes much for me to do that as I invite pretty much anyone that I can think of to anything that I host. I don't like to think that I'm leaving anyone out and I want to make sure that everyone has friends to do things with. No one should ever be alone if I have anything to say about it).

So I started inviting him to my games nights and things and he always came. And he would often be the last to leave.

I, again, got the feeling that he liked me and I didn't like that. I thought that he was really nice, but kind of weird.

We always hung out in groups though, so we didn't talk as much one on one for a bit. But then he started to become one of the people that I would go to when I was struggling. And he just cared for me so much, so obviously.

I didn't understand it. It made more sense with my other friends who had known me since before the arrest, but this guy had only known me since I'd been a hot mess. And yet he clearly cared a lot about me and wanted to help me as much as he possibly could.

(The conversation that inspired my You're a Person, Not an Addict post occurred in this time. It was with Jonathan if you haven't already guessed that).

I knew that he would ask me out at some point and I felt bad about it because I still didn't really feel like I liked him. I had started to feel like I maybe (possibly) liked him a little bit, but I was super unsure about it.

Eventually he did ask me out. I said "Sure!.......... You know that I'm going to be a ball of anxiety the whole time though, right?"

This was going to be my first date (with someone that I hadn't already known) since my ex-fiance. And that was SUPER scary for me.

Oddly enough, I actually ended up going on my first-date-with-someone-that-I-hadn't-already-known with a different guy from choir just the weekend before my date with Jonathan. It came totally out of the blue. I was super anxious during/after that date, so fully expected the worst from my date with Jonathan.

We had a few heart to hearts in between him asking me out and us actually going on the date. My interest in him grew in that time, but I was still hesitant.

We were originally going to go hiking, but then my health and the weather ruined that. So we resorted to the worst first date; going to see a movie. But decided to also just go somewhere afterwards and just talk since we would have had plenty of time to talk if we had been hiking.

We saw The Greatest Showman and were literally the only two people in the theater. That made me feel a little bit anxious, but not bad at all. It was actually kind of nice because then we could talk during the movie as much as we wanted.

Jonathan ended up holding my hand during the movie and I was actually okay with it. We cuddled a bit for the rest of the movie and I thoroughly surprised myself when I honestly told him during the credits that I hadn't felt anxious at all.

It's like I kept waiting for the anxiety to kick in as soon as Jonathan held my hand. But then it just... didn't. I felt completely safe and comfortable with him, and that's not something that really happens with me at this point.

After the movie we went to the dunes and just walked and talked. I explained all of the reasons that dating me would be really hard. And he did his best to explain to me why he cared about me so much; a question that I had asked him one night when he was comforting me.

Next thing I know, we're dating.

Like, dating dating.

I hadn't expected that. But it felt right. I felt so safe when I was with him, and I loved how much he clearly cared for me despite all of my baggage.

Jonathan has always been SO patient with my anxiety. The first few weeks of us dating was a lot of me going back and forth about whether it was right or not and being super anxious because PTSD. And he was perfectly content to have the same conversations with me every day. Reassuring and calming me down every day.

After only a couple of weeks of us dating, we already started to feel like we would probably end up getting married at some point. I wanted to date for a really long time first so that I could feel 100% sure. My anxiety did NOT like the idea of putting myself in a position to be hurt again. I wanted to know everything about Jonathan. I wanted him to know everything about me. I wanted us to see each other in every situation. Basically, I wanted to take ALL of the time before getting married.

And he was perfectly okay with waiting.

He definitely knew before I did that we were for sure going to get married. For me, it was more of a "probably" kind of thing.

We talked about possibly getting married at the end of the next Winter semester. So in a year.

That would give us more time to date- both long distance and in person -and to be really sure.

After a while though, I knew that- realistically -if we were going to get married, we wouldn't end up wanting to wait that long. So we speculated end of Fall instead. That would give us about 8 months. Even that seemed really intimidating and fast to me.

Now let me tell you about finals weekend of last semester.

Friday and Saturday were emotional roller coasters for me. My anxiety was through the roof about various things. I would go from feeling really happy and reveling in Jonathan's amazingness to feeling like there was no way that us being together made sense or would ever work out because there was no way that I deserved someone as incredible as him.

I had multiple cry sessions all over Jonathan in those two days. A couple on his kitchen floor, one in the car in front of Broulim's, etc.

Friday, after my second cry-sesh of the day, Jonathan had finally calmed me down once again and we were just chatting. We got talking about his eventual wedding (whether with me or someone else) and he started talking about different resources that he had with decorations and DJ equipment and such.

J: "I could DJ the wedding!"

Me: "You canNOT DJ your own wedding!"

J: "Why not?"

Me:*Exasperated look* "Because, you have to mingle with the guests, dance with your wife....."

And then it hit me. His wife was going to be me.

Oh man you should have seen me. A sentence that started out berating him turned into me freaking out (in a good way this time) because it had just been confirmed to me that I was going to be his wife. I couldn't stop laughing. I was completely ridiculous.

The poor dear was so confused. It came absolutely out of nowhere. He was fine with it though because he already knew that we were going to get married, he had just been waiting for my anxiety to shut up enough for me to realize it too.

Even after my come-to-Jesus moment of figuring out that I was, in fact, going to marry Jonathan Laulusa, my anxiety did not shut up.

And so Saturday was another day of going back and forth between being super excited that I knew who I was going to marry and being terrified that I would never measure up to him.

He did EVERYTHING for me. And all I did was cry on him all the time.

I felt like he deserved so much better than a sad little broken Anna.

Then came what we call "Revelation Sunday."

Because of my anxiety attacks, Jonathan and I got very little sleep Saturday night. As such, we weren't sure if we'd make it through all three hours of church. I literally woke up just in time to brush my teeth, but a dress on, grab a Pop Tart, and bike to church. I got there running on no food and almost no sleep.

And yet when the speakers started speaking, I was all of a sudden hit with a TON of revelation. Reassurances that marrying Jonathan was right, that I was more than good enough, that I needed to be okay with him helping me so much, etc. The speaker would say one thing and I would write a full page of seemingly unrelated notes. And then I would look up, catch another line or two of someone's talk and then be off writing again.

After sacrament meeting, we decided to try to at least push through Sunday School. So we get settled into our seats, I whip out my Pop Tart, give on of the two in the package to Jonathan, and start eating mine. After a couple of bites, a member of the bishopric informs us that there was a mix up and they didn't have someone to teach the class. And my poor, sleep-deprived self raised my hand and said that I would teach. I gave a wistful glance to my still-almost-completely-whole Pop Tart and went up to the front.

I had no idea what I was going to teach about, so I asked for a volunteer for the prayer. After the prayer, I was still unsure, so I just asked some basic questions to gauge what was needed. So I started teaching and then partway through was hit with what I really needed to teach. And it wasn't for the students. It was for me.

Yet another reassurance that I was enough and that I was doing more for Jonathan than I felt.

In Relief Society (after scarfing down the rest of my Pop Tart), I received a few more little nuggets of inspiration.

After church we napped for a good two hours or so and then reconvened to pack Jonathan's car to go to Ohio.

At one point, we took a break from packing. We sat and talked some more about our eventual marriage. We'd been praying together every night since the beginning of our relationship and had prayed a lot to know when the right time to take next steps were.

Even though we both knew that getting married to each other was right, I still wanted to take plenty of time to just date before actually getting married. That seemed only fair after everything that I've been through.

Anyway, we sat and talked about timing and what not and then eventually I suggested that we finish packing. Jonathan got really thoughtful though and suggested that we should say a prayer. So I kind of shrugged and then knelt with him in front of the couch.

Well.

As soon as he started to pray, I got a thought. A thought that I then spent the rest of the prayer trying to pretend didn't happen.

The thought that came to me was that we should get married this summer.

Excuse me?

Um. No.

So I argued with myself for the rest of the prayer; telling myself that there was no way that that was a prompting and that I should just forget about it.

But then... I definitely didn't want to get married that soon. And we had never talked about getting married that soon. Jonathan had never pushed me to consider getting married any sooner than a year from now. End of Fall had been my idea and then felt okay when we prayed about it in our family prayers at night.

So where did that thought come from?

Jonathan finished praying and I didn't move. I was still arguing with myself. Really, I was arguing with God. Heavenly Father, this is scary. I love Jonathan and want to marry him, but NOT that fast. 

Jonathan said that I didn't move for a good 15 seconds or so.

Eventually I looked up at him and told him (very begrudgingly) the prompting that I received.

Needless to say, he was very surprised to hear that come out of Anna-the-Anxious's mouth.

But here's the thing guys. We then both felt REALLY good about it.

We prayed about it some more and it just felt right.

And all of a sudden I didn't feel anxious about marrying him anymore. And I haven't since.

After ALL of the anxiety of the two previous days, all of a sudden I was good.

Heavenly Father had to make everything stupid clear for me to get there, but I got there.

The night that my ex was arrested, I got a blessing from one of my best friends. In the blessing, he said that I would "confidently know" when I found the right person for me. And oh boy I have clung to that like a sloth to a branch.

All through dating my ex boyfriend and all through dating Jonathan I would pray and remind God that He had told me that I would confidently know.

I'm not generally one to ask for signs or whatever, but I was definitely asking for one here.

Heavenly Father, this whole dating/marriage thing is terrifying. I want to have love again, but I need it to be right this time. I can't take anymore heartbreak. You told me that I would "confidently know." Please make that happen. Please help me to be SO sure when it's right. Because otherwise I'll literally go back and forth over it for the rest of my life.

I think that I actually used the phrase "I need you to make it stupid clear" in one of my prayers.

And He did.

He made it stupid clear in a way that I definitely wasn't expecting at all. He told me to get married in about four months when I thought that I was going to be doing long distance with Jonathan for five.

Okay, so this is really long, so I'm going to wrap up my side of the story now. I'll let Jonathan cover the proposal and everything since I've already written so much. But be assured that I will absolutely write more about all of this later. I know that all of this sounds completely insane. I know that I just went from being afraid of dating to being engaged. I know that most of you didn't even know that I was dating someone.

Literally, I know.

I've told you what happened, but I plan to go a bit more in depth with the process of everything in later posts. Clearly an awful lot has happened in the last month or so (which is why I've been so terrible at posting), so it's going to take more than one post to really cover everything.

Hopefully this will satisfy everyone's curiosity for the moment though. I've had a lot of people demanding to know what the heck happened ever since I posted on Facebook that I'm engaged. Which is fair, since most of you didn't even know that I was dating anyone.

Anyway, there's my side of the story for you. Next post should be his side of the story, and then I'll elaborate a bit more on everything.

Until next time!

Ps- We had the amazing opportunity to kick off the porn speech together in choir this semester. You can watch it here.