where we are

Eilene and I have spent awhile now actively discussing the idea of getting married.

I know that males mature way more slowly than females do, but I’ve finally realized that I’ve stayed a child for far too long. Despite parts of me growing up too fast, more parts of me have stayed roughly sixteen trapped in a thirty-one year old body.

I’m terrified of course, these are all new ideas for me. I just know that at some point a switch was thrown. I’ve looked around at our house, the furniture and crazy colors, the dogs roaming the yard, and wanted to create a homestead.

Somewhere along the line we’ve become adults, unbeknownst to me. We’ve become “That nice couple who moved in down the block”.

Most importantly, we’ve become adults and still retained individuality. I’ve operated most of my life under the assumption that growing up meant that I would start wearing a certain color tie and become my parents. This hasn’t been the case. It’s possible to have the same talent and taste in art that I’ve had, the same taste in music, the same critique of the world’s geopolitical arena as an individual human has, and still be grown and responsible without sacrificing any of it.

So we’re planning on getting married. I’ve seen that there’s no waiting for “everything to be perfect”. Everything is not ever going to be perfect. This is, hands down, the most productive and rewarding relationship I’ve imagined. We still have our fights. I am still selfish and don’t listen enough. She still is too OCD about the way the towels are folded. We’ve done a ton of work to comb through our individual past patterns and leave them in ancient history where they belong. People are under the assumption that guidebooks for relationships are instinctive and that just isn’t so. Everything is not ever going to be perfect, and Eilene is my best friend and partner in crime above all.