Today was normal. I had an early meeting at work, and he was having breakfast with a friend. I went to get my nails done while he cut a new client's hair. We met together after and wound up watching this weird independent film on Netflix that neither of us really liked but we still made agreements to pause for each other during restroom breaks. We took my little brother out for chocolate milk and pizza. Later, he sat on my window-seat and read to me the caption of the latest story featured on Humans of New York. Something short and sweet about a dad and his growing up daughter...he looked up from his phone - I was audibly weeping, and he laughed (in that nervous 'I just accidentally made you cry' but also 'Why are you crying so hard about that?' kind of way). As it got dark, he told me that he wanted to start reading his book, and I told him that I had been wanting to write. So, he kissed me on the forehead and we said goodnight. "Be safe," like I always do before he makes his commute home. And here we are.
I guess it's been twenty-three weeks now since I mentioned wanting to write this post about dating. In just thirteen days, Ryan and I will have been together for three years. I was telling someone recently how crazy that sounds. I mean, not in the grand scheme of things, but realistically speaking and all things considered. Both 19 years old and happily single - one was into hardcore music and mosh pits; and the other, in bed by 10:00 pm, lulled to sleep by acoustic sessions on Spotify. One dropped out of college to pursue a trade school of sorts and the other wouldn't dream of making an academic B without a riot. An eternal optimist and an existential cynic. A high school wrestler and a subpar tennis-practicer. An extroverted perceiver and an introverted judger. I'll let you figure who's who.
Notice the overwhelming contrast here, but also don't underestimate a two person's mutual love for street tacos and The Office. And suddenly - after a cheesy introduction story that's better told in person - a couple of happily-single 19-year-olds began hanging out and then just never stopped.
We knew Jesus, too. We both grew up in the church and had loved Jesus as an idea, but we knew a different version of Him back then. One who died for our sins but maybe not all of them and what about all of the hurting people? There were gaps. We started to notice our stories intersecting at some pretty crucial and unfortunate tipping points of faith, except this time together and not apart. The convergence of tipping points wasn't unfortunate, it was the timing. It still felt like we were in the "favorite color" phase, and I for sure wasn't about to bring up my long-held doubts about The Bible. So, that just kind of festered, and I found out his favorite color.
People would say how perfectly we fit together, like it was "meant to be," whatever that means. We would just look at each other and smile and say thank you. That honeymoon phase you hear about in relationships -- when you only know the good things and nothing bad can ever happen (before the bad stuff starts to happen) -- it seemed to blow right over for Ryan and me. We hit the real life ground running...or more like tumbling, scraped knees and all. We spent a lot of time together, but we fought and fought and then we fought. Everyday, we fought. It was little things and big things and communication things and family things and schedule things and lust things and insecurity things and different things but the same things.
Nothing about the first years of being together was pretty, save some of the photos that made everyone else think that we had it figured out. It's tough talking about, because we have fun. We've had fun. Joy existed behind those smiles and the words weren't spoken in vain. We weren't simply "making it work," but after the third argument that day, you start to imagine. This? Forever?
It's important to note how opposite our conflict was from the should-we-break-up-or-not type. Commitment wasn't the question and neither was loyalty, really. It was stop having expectations because I'm not good enough to deliver. And it was responding to confrontation differently but we can't both be right, so who is? It was I'm not going to bed angry, so finally my words started to sting and he sunk into himself again. Hearing Proverbs 31 for the thousandth time and being mad at God for my sharp tendencies. Let me be gentle and please, let him fight. It was hour after hour and week by week, reconstructing our views of one another as we also reconstructed our love for the Father. As he held my head and my downcast eyes met his, scared of the words that he had every right to say back. Greeted instead with soft tears that said, "I will love you for this heart that remains after the hurt passes." So, we fought and quite honestly, dealt with many issues that come to surface three years into a marriage...only we were 20 and still doing homework on the weekends.
This dating game that we'd heard about - the one that's supposed to be easy, reserving the baggage for seasons of engagement, and slowly unpacking after the I Do's - is certainly not the one that we've come to know. We've known more date nights than not that end in red, puffy eyes and I'm sorry that we're here again's. An outsider's surprised expression as we tell them how hard it's been. Giggling at our youthful naiveté but more-so blown away by Christ's design for beauty, redemption, and two people who have no business being together but desire to dig into the deepness of another's sadness and of their pain.
We were in the car the other day, talking about this post and what all we might say. I didn't want to say too much, but I was afraid of saying too little. It was silent for a moment as we thought, and then he said, "I think we love each other better now than we did." I think you're right, Castle. And I guess that's what this is about. That's what we're learning. To let the Holy Spirit move us and guide us and change us. Some may say that it would have been smarter to wait, grow up, become familiar with yourself and the things that you believe before diving into this pursuit. And maybe it would have been. But I don't care to know what would have been. I described it twenty-three weeks ago, and I still think it be true: "I don't believe that soulmates are real...I don't think that he completes me, but rather fills in a multitude of gaps that I'm incapable of filling myself. And every day, I can see the Lord sweetly reconciling myself to Him* through the grace that Ryan gives in areas that I'm most unlike Christ."
*To my friends who find themselves in seasons of singleness, by choice or not by choice, hear me. Having "somebody else" isn't your golden ticket to discovering these things. It's just how it happened for me, and I can confidently say that there are days that I wish I was wrestling through it alone. The Lord doesn't start reconciling you to him as soon as you're in a committed relationship and pursuing the next step. You find that in community and in your local church and in strangers that tell you about their day. Keep finding it.
And as for this sheepish girl and one worn-out boy, we'll keep fighting. He'll show up thirty minutes later than planned, and I'll be a child about it. I'll tell him that I'd rather not go out today because I don't like the way that I look, and he'll tell me that I'm the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. We'll eat ice-cream and celebrate three years and make coffee and jump fences and serve students and go to work and dance at friends' weddings and overshare on Instagram, because This. Forever.
