So I did this crazy thing. I packed up everything I own, got into a truck alongside my handsome boyfriend, and drove into the sun(rise) to my new home across the country... New Jersey. Now, if someone, somewhere, along the way in my first twenty-two years of wandering this earth had said to me, "Someday you are going to fall in love and that love is going to take you to New Jersey," I would have laughed in their face. No, really, it would have been hysterical. Except, they would have also been right.
When I met my beau I was twenty years old and most certainly not looking for love. I had had my heart broken one time too many to be fooling around with the likes of that nonsense. I had also seen my fair share of failed relationships to know that if it happened, cool. If it didn't, I'd get a few dogs, maybe a couple cats, and call it a life. No harm, no foul. That was not, however, the plan that God had for me. (And, yes, I believe in God. And, no, I will not shove it down your throat. And, no, I will not shove my love story down your throat, either. Well, maybe.)
I made him chase me for about six months. Ha, I can't even type that with a straight face. You see, that is what he would have you believe when in reality I just wasn't interested in anything but finding myself at the time that he came around. Finally, a couple of days after the fourth of July and six months after we'd actually met, I went to a party at his house. His big, brown eyes, somewhat of a Pennsylvania accent, and funny-looking cut off shorts greeted me at the door. Before we knew it, we were in the backyard playing guitar, singing, and talking until one in the morning. The rest, as they say, is history.
I couldn't quite believe how fast I fell in love with him. I couldn't quite believe he was real, even, or, like, an actual human. In fact I asked him frequently where he came from to which he would reply, "Pennsylvania," with a smart-alick smirk on his face. But fall in love with him, I did.
It wasn't your typical-Nicholas-Sparks kind of love, either. Of course it has plenty aspects of that- slow dancing in the kitchen with no music, staring longingly into each other's eyes over a glass (or four) of wine, and not to mention kissing in the rain. But, it was also the kind that made you look at life in new ways and question things you'd never even thought of before. It was the kind that made you understand why people want to get married and settle down in a humble home somewhere, maybe pop out a cute little kid or two. It was the kind that gave you butterflies and made you feel like you were fourteen again, but also gave you the confidence of a strong and independent thirty year old. It was an emotional roller coaster of falling in love with each other and finding new parts of ourselves in the process. Finding new reasons to embrace with open arms this thing we call "life". And I'm not sure why I am talking about this aspect of our relationship in a past-tense because these things have never really stopped.
My family, whom I have a lot of and I am incredibly close to, pretended not to like him while secretly loving him almost as much as I do. My mother, who was partly responsible for our even meeting, loved him until she realized he'd be the one to "take me away" someday, then hated him, then loved him again. My friends liked him from the start, but he caused change in our world, too. Before it was just me and the girls, going to stupid keg parties, and having crushes on stupid boys, and suddenly they could see the way I looked at him and the way he looked at me. We all knew that part of our lives was over.
Which brings me to now. One year and seven months later. I am sitting in my brand-new, beautiful apartment, with the handsome boyfriend I speak of off at work doing things that successful engineers do, starting this blog.
I'd always dreamed of New York City. Sheer pictures of it on Google was enough to give me chills. I'd always dreamed of living there someday, if only ever in my mind. So when my handsome, successful, engineer-of-a-paramour (did I mention that already?) was promoted in his company and asked to move to New Jersey for two years, I said, and I quote, "Let's go."
Don't get me wrong, I have had plenty of moments since arriving here wanting to go back to the moment I said that and slap myself silly rather than declare the two words that would, in turn, shake up every aspect of my very existence. But I said them. And I'm here.
Even though being here is terrifying and not knowing anyone sucks and I miss my family, my mom, my puppies, my friends, my routine, and... you know... sunshine... I still know deep, deep down in the deepest parts of my soul that this was something I had always been meant to do. Something that WE had always been meant for- to build each other up, to support each other, and to follow our own dreams in the process. Even though I am currently unemployed, school doesn't start for another six months, I don't even know if I've gotten in to the school I wish to finish at for my bachelors, and I have absolutely nothing to wake up and do at the current moment- I still belong here. Something great is coming. And I know that because so many great things already have.
