around this time 5 years ago

It was around this time 5 years ago where I found myself at a very difficult impasse in my life. I was recently graduated from the MFT program at ULV, engaged, and supposedly packing to move to Mexico by Sept 22 (or around that time) to be with the guy I was supposed to marry. The last year of that relationship had be incredibly tumultuous. If you ask my mother she would tell you she heard too many nights me crying on the phone.  I had also been going through a 2 year long transformation back into the person my 18 year old self wanted to be: heading into a career of helping others, surrounded by family, and on my own. This was in stark contrast to who I was expecting to be: wife and future Mrs.

 

In May of that same year (5 years ago) I sat with my black robe and hood with ULV’s colors waiting for my name to be called. I would walk up, grab my diploma, and smile. However this moment of my life was fill with such bittersweet emotions. I kept thinking in my head that this moment, was the end. The end of my childhood. The end of my home. The end of my family. It was time for me to grow up and get married, because that’s what you do. I remember walking out of that stadium to “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and almost crying at this loss of innocence. I wasn’t ready to grow up and do the grown up things I had thrusted myself into doing.

Fast forward 4 months, everyday inching closer to my departure date. I had left a couple of years prior to Mexico and let me tell you that the pain I felt when I packed my bags was the equivalent of feeling my soul being ripped out of me. It didn’t even feel like I was growing, it felt like I was tearing at the stitches that held me together, tearing at the stitches of my family that had always loved me and surrounded me. There I was, with clothes I needed to pack, boxes I needed to label, and a wedding dress hanging in the closet. The invitations sent. The venue booked. “It’s just cold feet” I told myself. 

 

So what happened, you probably ask, since I’m sitting in So.Cal and not in Mexico. Scott. Scott happened. Completely unexpected, completely unplanned, and completely needed. He wasn’t what changed my mind to call everything off, he was the match that lit a very very volatile powder keg. I remember sitting across from him and thinking: his ambition is like my ambition, he is passionate about what he does (like how I’m passionate about what I do). Scott made me feel congruent with who I was all within the span of a couple of hours of having met him. And he hadn’t even kissed me yet or made any passes (so put those thoughts away). What he made me feel shook me to my core so much that reevaluated what I thought I had wanted. I didn’t want to leave my family. My family is my blood life. I didn’t want to leave California. It had taken me 24 years to learn to appreciate it’s beautiful sunsets, it’s Diet Spring (our winter and fall), and hell, even it’s traffic. It isn’t’ until you’re about lose all that you’ve known that you everything you’ve every loved comes into focus.  

 

I stayed for my family.

I stayed for my friends.

I stayed for my career.

And Ultimately, I stayed for Scott.

 

So here we are 5 years later, 3 months away from getting married (holy moly 3 months). We don’t have an anniversary, because that September 5 years ago was such a cluster of emotions that I couldn’t pick out a date if my life depended on it. I don’t have those fears of needing to grow up and buckle down, because I’m going to share my life with a man who keeps me in touch with still being a kid with his humor. I don’t fear losing my family because they are at least 10 min away driving. As for friends, well if I hadn’t stayed I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to have the amazing girlfriends I have in my life now.

 

Bring on being married, bring on being a Mrs. I don’t mind it one bit. We’ve spent the last 5 years building a home for 2 (4 if you count the fur babies), and I look forward to building the next 85 (more if we are cryogenically frozen) years together.  I no longer fear being tethered to someone, as long as that person I’m tethered to is Scott.