I met my husband when I was 20 years old. We dated for 14 months before he proposed. In all honesty, I knew he was the one I would choose to spend forever with a mere three months into our courtship. I was BEGGING for the engagement to happen. I could not WAIT to change my name. Even our 8 month engagement felt like an eternity. We were ready. But through this time of impatience, one common theme resounded from 90% of the world: don't rush to get married. And then upon marriage: don't rush to start a family.
I was told not to rush into marriage... to take time to travel. Take time to see the world. Take time to live out my dreams. I was told not to worry when we couldn't conceive. To enjoy the infertile time. To use it as a time to travel. Take time to see the world. Live out our dreams. But this advice, as well intentioned as it was given, felt like a clouded judgement on what marriage and family is to me.
I once saw a post that a friend wrote about how they feel bad for people who just want to "settle" in life. That they were getting out of here and headed to the west coast to live their dreams. That they were in their early 20s and had so much life to live.
So to those who told me that marriage and a family would extinguish the fire within, I say:
Our lives are not much different.
We are both awake at two in the morning taking care of our friends who cannot take care of themselves. We both dry tears and fall into bed exhausted from the late night that turned into this 2am hunger-fest.
We both find beauty in the world. Yours is found in wanderlust. In seeing the sunset sweep across the sky at the Taj Mahal or in exploring the depths of the ocean. Mine is found in watching the sunset sweep across ten tiny toes or in exploring the depths of the water at bath time.
We are both chasing our dreams. Yours to be a CEO and save your money to buy the home of your dreams. Mine to chase around a little crawler and cook dinner for my family in our well-priced starter.
We both had to work for what we wanted. You hustle on the daily for your dreams and independence. I hustle on the daily to get places on time now that I'm never alone with a baby on one hip.
We are both searching for inner peace. I cannot pack up to do this on a yoga retreat or leave for a week long trip to California. No, I do this at nap time when I have 20 minutes to eat and say a quick prayer.
You see, friends, we aren't that much different.
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I promise to never tell these travelers and wanderers and adventurers that MY adventure is better, because it's not, it's just DIFFERENT. I am living the life that I dreamed.. And the wait was HARD, though short. You see, friends, when we tell people to travel before they get married and to chase their dreams before children we are taking away the opportunity for marriage and family to BE the adventure. We can travel with a spouse and we can dream of children. Those are beautiful things to desire.
And if, in the end, all I have is my humble home and hand-me-down clothes and trips to the park, I will have lived more life in that simplicity than I could have ever dreamed of living. And if, in the end, you have seen the world and found inner peace and traveled your own road to Heaven, you will have lived your best life, too.
Support the journey others are traveling. We are not that different in the end.
