on Love, and other extraordinary happenings

(I posted this on my Myspace blog, which I never, ever use. I put it on here mostly so ONE PERSON could read it, as she is incredibly important to me and was absent for much of what I'm writing about.)

My life is so incredibly different than what I imagined it ever could have been right now.

Part of what is bringing all of this on is that Sean and I will have been married for six months on the 16th. Six months! On the 23rd, we'll have been together for 10. I say it to everyone who asks, but I'll say it again--I never, ever thought I would be married at this age, if at all. Fresh off of Dr. Finley's Sociology courses, Sean and I both discussed (& agreed) to great lengths the concept of marriage, the idea, the instituition. We were both whole-heartedly opposed. It had nothing to do with being children of divorce, it just wasn't something either of us factored into our lives. I've known since I met Sean we were destined to be intertwined in a beautiful pattern for the rest of our days, I just didn't know what the pattern looked like. We were both terrified of dating--we didn't want to ruin what is a beautiful friendship.

I think that is our greatest strength--at the very heart of it, our relationship, we are truly best friends. I also never believed that the person you're with should be your best friend. To me, my best friend was the girl I've known since I was 16, who gave me a ride home on my birthday and introduced me to Bob Dylan, Magical Mystery Tour, and Ryan Adams. She was, and remains, my soul sister, this other cosmic entity sent to me to get me through life. How could someone else be my best friend? Especially someone I met after her? But he is. I can honestly say he knows me better than anyone, and knows me well enough to know that you can never know everything, because I, like the rest of human beings, am constantly evolving and changing. But he understands my roots, my cores, my beliefs, and my spirit. Those are the most important things.

Now, I can't imagine life without Sean. Before we began talking, as friends, I was about to fly to a foreign country with a friend, to stay with another friend, with the intent of staying, just to escape. In fact, up until the week Sean and I first started hanging out, I was planning how to pay for my plane ticket, credit cards and all. And Sean completely turned my world 100% upside down in a matter of minutes. I knew I would stay, and I knew it would be with him.

We drove 13 hours to Philadelphia to see Beck. It was our first date. After we came back home, I stayed at his house, because it was late and he lived 40 minutes away from me. Then I stayed the next night, because we didn't go to classes and we wanted to be around each other. I stayed the following night, because conviently, my stuff was still at his place. And then I just stayed all the time, and he asked me to bring more of my stuff, and I was officially moved in. We've been living together since we were dating, which was one of the most exciting things I've ever done. I never thought relationships really started off like that, it sounds like something the flightly character in a film does. If I am that flightly character, I hope I always am.

We went to Las Vegas in January, to see his Hawaiians, and it was on that trip that I realized he would be in my life permanently. I think it was half simply meeting the other part of his soul---so much of him is rooted in his Hawaiian relations and nativety, which is remarkable because he has really spent so little time there. The other half, I belive, was the pure magic that Hawaiians weave around anyone they love. The entire trip was loaded with an other-worldly quality I had not yet experienced in life, and didn't realize was possible through another human being. Sean asked me to marry him on that trip, with the sweetest and most wonderful proposal in the world (and I'm not sharing it, because I am keeping it for myself), and I completely and totally accepted (the exact words were "I'm down!"), and we giggled and stared at each other and talked about how crazy it was for us, the two opponents to marriage, to be discussing such matters.

We never set a date; I never had an engagement ring. We weren't really sure when or where it would take place. We talked about having a ceremony outside, on Monte Sano, and having a friend speak. We woke up one Friday, and more or less decided that if it worked out, that would be the day. It was the 16th, two days after Valetine's Day. We took clothes to wear with us to school, and as it turned out, my Spanish class was cancelled that afternoon, and we were both finished with classes by 11:30. We decided to go to Zero Gravity, and get these wonderful, $10 rings, and then to the court house. We were going to do it alone, and then decided if anyone deserved to be there, it was our mothers. We called them about an hour before we were supposed to go in. They both subsequently had minor heart attacks, but made it in time. :)

Life since then has been the most blissful extension of life before then. Everyone says things change when you get married, that you find out something about the other person you didn't know, or you start fighting, or whatever. We DO find out new things about one another, all the time. We find our things we have in common, things that we don't but that still manage to work together. We're like a zipper, if that makes sense. We each fill in the other side. Sean and I have continued to fly around our merry, peaceful world with only minor bumps, which have all had to do with our completely horrendous money-managing skills. But surprisingly, and with the help of some lovely relations, we survive even those, and we're finally getting on our feet, and acting like responsible individuals. Only in the sense that we now watch our spending. Everything else about us remains children in love, giggling, holding hands, and gnome kissing (rubbing noses).

Our natures are incredibly well-suited. I'm all instinct, and Sean is all mind, all theory. He's the first person who can bring theoretical proof to my instincts. Before, I always knew I was right-on about something, but never prove it. Since I've met Sean, he's helped me express what I've always known. It works both ways--since meeting me, Sean becomes more and more comfortable with allowing his mind and intuition guide his thoughts. He's not totally there yet, but he's grown tremendously. Sean has some of the greatest ideas and aspirations of anyone I've known, but not always the confidence to vocalize or apply them in his life. I am so incredibly proud of him, and so happy to be included in his life. He is never condescending, or rude. He is never mean to me, he never yells, and he is endlessly patient. He is SO loving. Sean beams love out of every part of his body. I feel it every time he touches me, however slight it may be. His entire soul IS LOVE. We both are faulted in that we're incredibly sensitive, but I think this is also one of our greatest combined attributes--we're sensitive to one another, neither starts a fight, we discuss things to great detail, and above all else, we're sensitive to the needs and dreams of others.

Recently, I've seriously started to think about what it would be like to have a child with Sean. This is still years down the road, but it's something I've been giving real thought to. We've joke about it, coming up with names and the like, but it was until one day when he, like he so often does, looked at me and grinned so, so widely, before exploding into one of his rainbow-colored tangents about who-knows-what, that I realized I really, really want to do that with him. I want to bring another life into the world that is ours, and I want to teach our child, I want him to teach our child, I want to see him with our child and know that we have created this extraordinary breath of life. This will most likely not happen for a good 2-4 years down the road, (you can never be positive, sometimes children like to sneak up on you), but it's something I look forward to doing with Sean.

I meant to write about other things, other events happening in my life or other people I know. I had no intention of speaking of Sean for so long, but I'm glad I did, and I don't want to mar this with talk of someone else.

I am happy.

WE are happy.