Life is a series of choices. Everything I am, everything I do, everywhere I go, it's all the result of choices I'm making now or ones I've made in the past.
I'm 29 years old, and I don't exactly know what I want to be when I grow up. I don't see this as a bad thing at all. It drives me crazy when I see people in their 20s and 30s who claim they are "old" or that their best times are behind them.
How is that possible? You're only (statistically) a third of the way through life, but you're practically giving up! The next 60 years aren't looking superfun...
I love getting older, and I love new experiences. Even the things that scare me a little (skiing), I still want to try. I'm not decrepit and I have insurance, so if worse comes to worse, broken bones heal. I just want to experience life!
I want to travel more, see everything, learn a new language, jump out of a plane again. I want to share those experiences with the person I've chosen to spend my life with. I want to push him out of a plane and out of his comfort zone. I want him to push me off a cliff and down a mountain.
Relationships are more than comfort and ease. I love Fiance, very much. I also love my family and my friends and my life. I believe that good relationships are ones that push you. I want to be pushed, pulled, and contorted into new experiences, trying new foods, and doing stuff that scares me.
If it doesn't scare you a little bit, it's not worth doing. I had never been in love and wasn't really looking for it. I went on that date to have fun and meet a cool new person in my newly adopted home of Brooklyn. 5 years later, I'm marrying that guy.
Since we met, we have pushed each other. I pushed him into new social situations, into traveling the world, and out of the house on the weekends. He's pushed me into new hobbies, into a new and exciting life plan, into love, and into learning to love being alone sometimes.
I learn things from him. We learn from each other. We navigated moving in together, starting a home search, being our own family, and more. We read each others favorite authors, we have deep discussions about Batman vs Superman and what the best superpower would be (it's flying, duh. Invisibility is dumb.). We read the book and then go see the movie and then go over the differences. We've gotten more into politics and investing together. We've spent the last 5 years falling in love, loving life, and growing up together.
Why am I marrying him, when I am a little bit scared of marriage? Because I am a better person after being with him than I was before. Because he pushes me, teaches me, and learns from me. Because I would rather be arguing with him over something stupid than being in a waveless relationship with anyone else. Because at some point over the last 5 years, he has become my family, and I his. We are a team, and it's us against the world.
As trite as that may sound, that's how I know it's real, how I know I am fully in love.
Love is scary and confusing. I had never been in love with someone before, though I had loved many. I love my family and friends, I love my cat, and I feel that I have a deep capacity for love that only grows with each new person added to it.
I didn't know if I loved him. I didn't know how to tell if you're IN LOVE with someone. I learned that it's the little things. I wanted to stay in with him more than go out with other people. I would see or hear something and I'd think "I have got to tell him this!" I would think of a pun and have the need to tell him immediately, and watch him sigh and roll his eyes. He was the person I wanted to say good morning to. The ONLY person I could look at before having coffee.
I'm not afraid of marrying him at all. It's funny how some of the biggest fears in life are the things that are the most exciting.
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