Another long day and another sleepless night.

I spent most of the afternoon trying to get my Axim to work with Messenger. I ended up having to do a hard reset and reinstalling everything (I downloaded all the scriptures and footnotes, index, etc from lds.org so this was a lot of stuff to install again). This time around, it worked, but now Outlook won't bring in my email *sigh*. I'm sure it's something I'm doing wrong, since I can't find this topic anywhere in support forums -- obviously I'm the only one with the problem.

THIS is why I like Apple so much better; it's just more intuitive and everything. Talk about setting up WIFI on my Vaio and on my Axim...ugh!! However, getting wireless to work on my iBook was a breeze....of course!

People say my family is obsessed with Apple and with Saturn. Ok so they might be partially right; but the truth is we are just a bunch of loyal people. We find something that works, and we stick by it. Same way we stick by each other, stick by our friends and our loved ones. I was talking about this with my mother today. Last night I dug out my old journal from fall of 1995 and re-read it. I told her how I had told Jaime that when I said I loved him, I meant it...it was forever.

And I will always love Jaime...there is no doubt of that. And my promise to always be his friend -- I will never go back on that, either. That is one thing about him as well -- he has always been my friend throughout all these years, even when we hurt each other the most. I talked to him today and after reading my diary from when we were dating, and then talking to him, well of course it brought back memories, and I enjoyed the conversation with him. I have a deep affection for Jaime, and I know I always will love him. However, he is not and never was meant to be the man who would take me to the temple. He was my first love, but his is not my true love, he is not my celestial love. I believe he is a kindred spirit and a soulmate in that regard. Yet he is not the man who is supposed to father my children and raise them to be the people they need to be. Jaime is a good man and one of the best friends I have ever had in my lifetime; and I truly believe we also knew each other in the pre-existence. But we are not meant for each other. This was reconfirmed again to me today. I made the correct choice; I made the choice that Heavenly Father knew I would make. I felt peace again at recognizing this, and gratitude for the way my relationship with him, followed by my unrequitted love for him, all that it taught me and helped prepare me for where I am today. For that I will always be grateful and I will always love him. I hope to see him a lot in the future, even after our deaths. I hope we always remain close. He is a man I have loved for a long time; both on a thelos and a pathos level. I have switched between the two for 8 years. I have even felt my love grow cold for him at those times when he hurt me the most. Yet all that defining of what love is, the differences between them, blah blah blah .... it really is pointless, because there really is little difference. Pathos? That's just a way of expressing love. Thelos? That's what we should have for every person on this earth, and that is the love that gets us through the hard times with our life or eternal companions. That's the love that bridges the gap when our passions sometimes grow cold and disagreements fill our hearts. There's a reason we bind marriage in the temple. There's a reason God plays a third role in that divine partnership. It really is all very simple, yet each and every one of us go through our lives trying to define love as if we were defining some tangible object. When we feel anger or hatred or resentment towards a brother or sister, do we tell ourselves that we no longer love them? No. That's an absurdity. We just don't like them very much at that point. Yet when we are in "romantic" relationships -- when problems arise, when disagreements surface, when stress and fear and doubt plays a role in those relationships, we allow those very same things to convince us that it must not be "love", even though in a familiar relationship we wouldn't even dare believe that.

So why do we do this? Ah, the wise counsel of our General Authorities helps us to put this into perspective. Infatuation is always at the beginning of a relationship. It in itself is not bad, but once the thrill dies down and two people are left to get to know each other for who they really are...that's when real love only begins to develop; that's when love needs to be nurtured the most. That's when we need to see our romantic involvements as potential family.

Elder Hugh B. Brown concurs: "Infatuation may be romantic, glamorous, thrilling, and even urgent, but genuine love should not be in a hurry. Time should be taken for serious thought, and opportunity given for [each partner to gain] physical, mental, and spiritual maturity. Longer acquaintances will enable both to evaluate themselves and their proposed companions, to know each other's likes and dislikes, habits and dispositions, aptitudes and aspirations".

Bruce C. Hafen has compared relationships between men and women to a pyramid. The base of the pyramid is friendship, and the ascending layers include building blocks such as understanding, respect, and restraint. At the very top is what he terms a "glittering little mystery called romance." If one tries to stand the pyramid on its point, expecting romance to hold everything else up, the pyramid will fall.

"Some people expect the Lord to provide a dramatic revelation about their eternal mate, but what usually happens is that as we drop our defenses and communicate with a potential spouse, we experience subtle, ongoing spiritual promptings about the relationship."

"Inspiration can come only when we are honest with ourselves, our potential mates, and the Lord. When we first date somebody, we may try to mask our faults and make ourselves as appealing as possible. To develop an honest relationship, however, we must move beyond superficial appearances and allow our true selves to emerge. Likewise, we need to be careful to avoid hero-worshipping a potential mate; we should not allow our hopes and expectations color the truth about him or her. When marriage is a possibility, dating partners should constantly assess how much real potential they have for harmony, conformity, and union."(John D. Claybough).

You know, going through the whole 8 years loving Jaime, you'd think I would have gotten all this by the time I met Jeremy. I got most of it; but the whole rush-rush thing went completely over my head. I wasn't rushing the marriage; but I was trying to rush the falling in love part. I do know from experience that you don't know how much you really love someone until tragedy strikes. I'm serious; it's so easy to say "I love you" when all is well and blissful, when you're twitterpated and love being in each other's company; when nothing seems like it will ever go wrong again. But when you finally face reality and you go through your first big fight; or you learn all those horrible little tendencies the other person has that drive you insane, or you learn about their controlling nature, or their quick rise to anger, or they threaten you, hurt you, even leave you...well that's when your love is truly tested. And in every relationship that love is tested again and again and again. It wasn't until I broke up with Jaime that I only began to realize what love was. It literally took years of learning about the person he was, seeing him at his best and at his worst, forgiving him, encouraging him...getting over trying to change him...well that was the true test of love.

Then enters Jeremy. Oh dear, sweet Jeremy. We did rush things; but I knew, even in the beginning, that all the "I love you's" we expressed to each other were true to an extent...they were more true because we had been searching for each other for so long and had been loving each other for so long without knowing who the other person was. So all those "I love you's" were directed towards the people we WOULD become eventually...and also said in the midst of deep infatuation, pathos, bliss....but just because the early "I love you's" might seem empty and meaningless does not mean that they aren't true. That's just their nature. I can't speak for Jeremy, but I knew that when I finally said those words I meant them. When I first said it, I knew that saying it, for me, meant that I was admitting that I didn't know him well yet...I was admitting that I had been waiting for him and was so joyous at finally finding him and having God's consent, but I was also admitting that I would love him no matter what happened...that I would love the past, present, and future Jeremy. My experience with Jaime taught me well. I knew that Jeremy and I would have our first big argument...I expected that and expected strife and heartache. What relationship doesn't carry grief and pain? That's why love is merciless. That's why it hurts to be the part of someone else. Yet when he broke up with me, well, going through that pain of rejection and heartache really cut to the core of my soul, and the words "I love you" were no longer empty and meaningless. They were only just beginning to fulfill their whole meaning. I made a promise when I first said "I love you", and when I said it before leaving that restaurant a month ago, I knew that it meant something. I knew it was the truth.

Love is hard work. It's never easy. But if one thinks about it from an eternal perspective -- since when was anything easy worth it? It's through trial and tribulation that true joy comes to pass. "I never said it would be easy; I only said it would be worth it."