You Can’t Rush Love

PRESENT PAGES

Two years is a long engagement, by most people's math.

I often get a very similar surprised reaction every time I say it out loud, and it usually gets bigger once I mention we have actually been together for eleven years. There is always a little recalculation that happens on someone's face in that moment, especially as they put together the math with our age, having started dating so young. What I personally love is how quickly their reactions turn into excitement. The "wait, really?" or, “oh my goodness, you don’t see that much anymore!” into genuine celebration of how long we have been loving each other. I love that reaction. It reminds me that people are not really asking why we waited. They are just delighted to find out we have had this much time together already, and are planning for much more of it together.

I think we have lost some collective sense of the difference between slow and stalled. Slow has a shape to it. It is deliberate. It knows where it is going and simply refuses to get there before it is ready. Stalled does not know where it is going at all. We were never stalled. We were pacing, on purpose, toward something we wanted to actually be ready for when it arrived. We knew where we were going and, knew we had time to get there. At no point did we wish to be on someone else’s timeline.

The wedding is one place that pacing shows up. Moving into our first house together is another.

We didn’t move the second we could afford to, or the second it made sense on paper. We were actually planning to move last year; that was until I quit my job and decided to pursue my entrepreneurial dreams instead of a corporate ladder. Moving was not something to rush, and for very good financial reasons on top of everything else. We waited until it made sense in every way that actually mattered, until the timing, the finances, and the readiness all pointed the same direction instead of just one of them shouting loud enough to override the others.

But here is what is funny. We moved, we got here, and we really were not ready. Crazy, I know—imagine my surprise, sister. Now, I want to point out that this is not in a bad way. We are very happy together and are learning more about our new space, where to put everything, and getting new routines under way. It’s more in the sense of “oh, there’s a snake in our basement” and the fact that our coffee table is a clear moving bin for us to eat off of because we also don’t have a dining room table yet. “Oh.” This can also be in the fact that our wedding is officially 2 months away as this post goes live and while my RSVPs are coming in, my original design plan has gone out the window at my command. Becuase for me, a two year long engagement maent that my original tastes and aspirations for my wedding changed. And honestly, that’s okay. Overwhelming to move homes and prepare for the biggest event of your life all in two months, but the positives are here to outweigh the negatives.

That is really the through line, if there is one to share. The engagement and the house are not two different stories. They are the same decision, made twice. Wait until it is actually right, not just until it is available. Let the timeline bend around the truth of where you are instead of bending yourself to fit a timeline you did not choose. And ironically enough, I have gotten to the end destinations of both and wow am I underprepared. This move has changed our day to day life more than I expected, even though we were ready for it on paper and in real life. It has been a real adjustment, and some days it has felt awkward and hard and uncomfortable in ways I did not plan for (i.e. the snake as well as a giant spider who lives outside our front door".) On top of a wedding, on top of building a business, on top of trying to grow something I love from the ground up, on top of being social as my job, it has been a lot, all stacked at once.

I have always believed that good is coming, that we did this for a reason, that timing works out exactly how it is supposed to. I would love to tell you that belief has stayed steady and certain through all of this. Honestly, I have found myself losing my grip on it a little. Not because I think we made the wrong decision, but because doing the right thing on purpose still does not guarantee it will feel good the whole time. Right and easy are not the same word. I think I forgot that for a while. Let me tell you, I have been constantly reminded [/humbled].

But here’s the kicker that took me down another peg; I read something recently that has stuck with me more than I expected: we often forget that the tortoise won the race. We remember the moral, slow and steady wins, as a nice saying, but we forget what it actually felt like to be the tortoise, plodding along while something faster passed you by, with no proof yet that any of it would work out. The tortoise did not get to see the ending while it was still walking. It just kept choosing its own pace and trusted that the pace was the point, not the deadline.

That is where I am today. Not at the finish line looking back with clean clarity, but still walking, still choosing the slower way on purpose, without full proof yet that it was right. The timing was right. It is still this hard and it’s even harder to accept that both of these things can be true at the same time. I am learning that "right" was never meant to be easy.

So if two years still sounds long to you, I can tell you it is. I can also tell you confidently that it goes by quickly when you’re building a life you love with those you love. So if I offer you any advice, it’s don’t let yourself fully forget that slow isn’t bad, good things take time, and it’s okay to lose yourself for a bit along the way. You cannot rush love and you damn sure shouldn’t.