that sparkly feeling

August 25th, 2003

My parents met in a single digit grade level. They had some silly mock wedding production behind the schoolhouse. They tell me they didn’t go to proms because apparently they spent high school as “just friends,” but it’s interesting to me that neither one of them went. Of course, those were different times, and perhaps the prom attendance rate was lower than it is today.

They were married when they were 20, and had me when they were 22. Their birthdays are within three weeks of each other. They’ve been in love for forever, and I’ve never seen them have an actual fight.

When you grow up with *that* as your example, you set yourself up for some serious disappointment. I met lots of people in grade school. I’ve kept in touch with two or three of them, and there’s no way I’d marry any of them. When I hit 20, I realized that my version of Dad was nowhere to be found, and I cried. When I turned 22, I noticed that I was nowhere near getting married, much less having kids. But I didn’t cry because I figured there was lots of time for that.

When I turned 25, a friend asked me if I ever get scared that I’ll never have kids. I was. For a few years I felt that time clock pressure that women like to use when asking men for serious commitment. But I’ve learned that it goes away, that feeling that I NEED to have kids. Yeah, it doesn’t go away for everyone, but it did for me. My life isn’t perfect now, and having a family isn’t going to change that.

I spent many years being angry about the fact that my quest for a man was so much harder than my mom’s. But then I recently realized that she may have gotten to where she is on the direct route, but I get to see the scenery. The scenery is nice. I’ve gotten to make some great mistakes, and felt all kinds of wonderful love. I may never find “the one,” but if you add up my messy past, it really equates to some great stuff.