How Did I Get Here?

How Did I Get Here?

I think about this question a lot. These days, I’m thinking of it in terms of geography and the finale of an almost-two-year-long trek to a new city. Other times, however, it’s more, “How did I EVER get here?” in terms of marriage, motherhood, and approaching 30. Weren't we 19 barely three years ago?

I had always hoped to someday be where I am now. It didn’t matter when, I just wanted to get here sometime. Maybe that’s why it’s still somewhat strange to sit still and realize that I’m finally here. This is it, as they say. But it’s not really it, as in the end of the end, the top of the top. It’s just one it. But rather than looking to all of the other its I hope to reach in life, sometimes it's good for me to reflect on how I got to the current here.

When I was a teenager in a relatively small town, my older sister got married young and became a mother. The goal. A few years later, she was unhappy. I was at the local college, not sure what I wanted to study, and quickly losing my personally prized status as a straight-A student. I didn’t really care about school anymore. I wasn't sure what I wanted to study, and I was getting restless being back in school so soon. In addition, as someone who went on few dates in high school and had never had a boyfriend, my job at the grocery store near campus boosted my visibility and the dating opportunities came.

My sister warned me not to get married young. Some friends of mine were prepping to take the plunge. I got it in my head that if I didn’t leave for awhile, at the rate I was going I would end up married at 20, living in my hometown, someday resenting my poor husband for my lack of life experiences on my own. Or so my 19-year-old-“sky is falling”-self reasoned, so I left. Thus began the gypsy lifestyle that persisted for the next ten years.

About five years into it I was tired of wandering, realizing that there is something to be said for consistency in some form or another.

I wanted to be somewhere I could invest my time (relationship-wise), not just spend it. When I asked him what he liked most about being married, my dad said, “One time my dad gave me his credit card when I went on a road trip up the coast of California. It was a sad trip. There were gorgeous sunsets, beautiful scenery, and I could spend whatever I wanted, but I was alone. Being married is all about being able to point to the sunset and say, ‘Now isn’t that beautiful?’”

Living for myself was growing tiresome, and not being able to share my adventures began to take the fun out of them.

Dating provides so many opportunities to see, do, and try fun, new, incredible things. But when I began to look back on many of my favorite memories, I realized many were had with people I would never see again. They got married, or once I was in a relationship, a close friendship with them would be inappropriate. Those memories had to be locked away to some degree, whereas marriage is about keeping shared memories front and center, relishing them, continually polishing them to keep the fire alive.

Being alone with oneself is a wonderful thing. I have great memories of solo road trips, solitary reflective moments, creative projects where I lost track of time for hours. I still seek these times. I don’t regret any time on my own, nor am I saying marriage is the only way to invest in a long term relationship (friends, family, coworkers, those we serve…). I know I handle marriage better than I would have due to the things I learned about myself in those years. But I reached a point where, for me, sharing my whole life was my greatest desire.

There is a difference between feeling lonely and feeling desperate. Loneliness is a normal human emotion. Desperation often comes from a sense of unworthiness. Too often it's assumed that if you actively seek marriage, then you must be desperate. There is also a difference between feeling lonely for company and feeling like you want a home of your own. Somewhere to stay, somewhere to build. My parent’s home was a constant hub, a place where I felt belonging and love. But it wasn’t mine to build; it wasn’t where I could stay and grow.

So, I worked at dating. I got very deliberate, and put my partners through the wringer. I created a lot of social discomfort by skipping small talk and cutting to the chase on second and third dates (sometimes sooner). I narrowed down the enormous list that was unconsciously floating around in my head and chose THE three things I needed in a man. If he had those, I stayed (barring any red flags, obviously). No allowing the list to grow as time went on. If I found the three things waning, I left. No hanging on for lack of anything better to do.

I quit using dating as my entire social life and something fun to do on Friday night, and began using it for what it was designed to be: a way to select a life partner. Sometimes this approach worked, sometimes I had to scale it back. But I figured that the type of guy who would want to be with me forever would probably be able to handle my unconventional ways.

Years later, I was finally able to choose Jon. It was no whirlwind, and it didn't just happen. He was the type of man I had set my sights on, sifted through the masses for. He met the three criteria (and plenty of the ones I thought I had to let go of years before), as well as the final criteria of liking me back. We both had qualities others had turned away from. We both had many shortcomings. But we had the same end-goal and the same vision of what it would take to reach it.

We didn’t date long, but we packed in a good two years' worth of discussion, arguments, and discoveries in our short courtship. By this time in our lives, we had both laser-focused on the types of things we needed in a mate, so we cut right to finding out if we were a match (or at least I did).

It wasn’t easy though; as a recovering serial dater who had always kept my distance emotionally, I would actually vomit on our dates from the anxiety of knowing this one was real. Jon jokes that it was the sight of his face that did it; but I know it was because I was having to open my heart for real. This is what I had been seeking, I knew it was right, but I also knew deep down I had to then give of myself and leave the life I was used to.

Sometimes we think we want something so badly, but when faced with the reality that our lives will actually change in a huge way, the discomfort in that is much scarier than missing out on what we stand to gain, so we remain stuck. I knew I had to reveal the deepest parts of myself to someone who deserved it, and that freaked me out. How he managed to stick around through all of that, I’ll never know.

In the darker times of my single life when things weren’t working out how I hoped, I had this recurring image that I would visualize of my future husband, our children, and me sitting in a living room in front of a fireplace. In that image I would realize, This is why. This is why I had to go through those difficult times, because this is where I was heading.

This scene has played out many times in my current life. Although, it’s not in a perfect living room with a perfect fireplace in it. Many times it’s on the go as we run from here to there trying to get our “real life” set up. Sometimes it’s in a 600-square-foot apartment feeling my first baby kick, knowing we will move three times by the time he’s one year old but wanting him all the same. Sometimes it's when my son laughs because he has barf all over his face. Most times it doesn’t feel like a rush of satisfaction, or “my heart bursting” like the common Instagram caption goes. It just feels so natural, more natural than anything, because it's exactly where I belong today.

When starting this blog I wondered if I should talk about things like this. Gush about family life. The feelings I had while single, reading others’ such accounts, are still so real to me. The mixed emotions of joy for my friends, longing for it for myself, twinges of envy, ache with the fear it might be a long way off, frustration, excitement, and many others. The struggle of singlehood, however inconsistent it was, isn't something I’ll soon forget.

Some saw me as having gotten married young, so I don’t know anything about the real struggle. Some Married's saw me as old and offered me the well-meaning but useless encouragements of “Keep your head up, he’s out there!" Or my favorite, "When the time is right, you’ll find each other! Work on being the one, and then you’ll find the one". However, the most annoying thing married people did was pity me. Just because I seek marriage, doesn’t mean I am perpetually bummed when I don't have it. Single life can be a great, full life. Married life can be terrible. It's all what you make it.

Good-intentioned married people interrogated me left and right, trying to diagnose me or figure out what more I could do to fix my singleness. My “ability to commit” was examined, and once even my sexual-orientation was questioned due to the number of seemingly "perfect" matches I let go. Only the two people in a relationship can know how perfect, or imperfect, the pairing is.

In short, people can be ridiculous. I don’t want to be one of those married folks, so I am going with what is real to me. I’m choosing not to pity. I’m choosing to believe that married or single, we are all in charge of our own happiness and contentment. I trust that you, dear reader, are strong enough to handle a few adorable baby photos and the occasional husband-brag.

So how did I get “here”, in the literal sense? Here is all over the West Coast where we are visiting family on our way to Massachusetts. Jon is going to attend Harvard Law, and the babe and I are going to explore Cambridge and enjoy being in one place for awhile. By the time we get there, Clayton will have visited 12 states and 8 major cities in his little life. We are ready for a rest.

As unconventional as it is, and as trying as it can be, the joy I have experienced in my new family life has been as exquisite as any pain felt in waiting for it. It's been a wild ride, but I am happy to finally be here.