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“I Do”
Like many people, I have always had this idea of how my life would end up, a plan for my path in this world. Even when I was young I had an image of what kind of an adult I would be. While all the other girls were playing with Bridal Barbie in her dream home I was playing with Career Kelly in her corner office, when the other girls dressed up like princesses I would pretend to be an astronaut. You see, I never had those grandiose dreams of finding prince charming, or love at first sight and I never giggled at sleepovers about which celebrity I would marry. What I wanted was independence, strength and a career. In high school whenever our teachers asked the quintessential question of “where do you see yourself in five years?” My answer was easy. I wanted my degree, and I wanted a life not tied down with the responsibilities of a domestic lifestyle. I had never even considered marriage or a family in my future. In my mind, that was an outdated concept for a young woman with the world ahead of her. So imagine my surprise when I realized I had met the man I would one day marry.
It was in a room full of rowdy eight to ten year olds that I had my first conversation with Paul. We were two, among a peer group of six, who had volunteered our Sunday mornings to help lead our church’s youth classes. He was there with his friends and me with mine, but our reserved and quiet dispositions drew us to one another. When not helping with the children we where to content to set back together and observe. Neither of us had the desire to shout excitedly with our friends in social settings and contributed only when we had something worth saying. It’s not that either of us had shy personalities but more so we were young and abnormally practical for our age. This quality set us apart from our group of acquaintances but pulled us together as inevitable friends. We would sit off to the side and people watch, making comments to each other about things no one else would understand.
Within the first two weeks of our budding friendship, a sort of knowing came to me. A sudden realization, like being immersed into a frozen lake, exhilarating and equally terrifying. It was mid conversation, standing in the back of one of our Sunday school classes, that the thought hit me. Goosebumps pricked my skin and I knew I would marry this man. Being the practical person I was, I dismissed this strange feeling. Rationalizing I told myself I was young, taken by fancies, this was a crush and nothing more. It was only a short time after that, as our relationship solidified, Paul shared with me his feelings for another woman. Strangely relieved i use that information to further justify pushing aside my previous revelation. The next time I saw him, however the feeling came back, and no matter how hard I pushed, it was always there. Over time it’s overwhelming consistence became a matter of course, I accepted it and it became a part of my life. It was irrelevant though, i still had no intentions of changing my plans. I still wanted to rule the world from my corporate corner office and he was still in love with someone else.
I confided in one person, my conflicting emotions of knowing and not wanting. The opposite of me in almost every way, my best friend since childhood is energetic and excitable. The center of every social setting, she has a ready laugh and a great sense of humor. These differences are the foundation of our friendship, she keeps things light and fun and i am always the voice of reason. Unlike me, her world did revolve around finding a man worth having a family with and in her mind set me predicament was something akin to a fairy tale. Though she doubted I would actually marry this man, she found the entire thing to be proof of love at first sight ad utterly romantic. She was the one person I would gossip late into the night with and we would discuss fears and hopes, relationships and love. She respected my view on independence but jumped at every chance to hear me talk about a new boyfriend or matters of the heart. As my friendship with with Paul strengthened and evolved, she was always there whenever I felt the need to vocalize that feeling that pressed down on me. She would listen with compassion as I confessed that despite other romantic relationships, the feeling still floated in the back of my mind. No matter how sweet or funny my significant others where I could never shake that feeling that I was supposed to be with the man who had managed to sneak his way into being the person I trusted most in my life.
