When I was young, really really young, I thought that I was meant to meet the man that I would marry by the time I was, oh..I don’t know, 15? Date for a few years, graduate high school, and get married. This was about the time that my cousin Melissa and I would gather up our girl scouting books and play “college,” carrying books and pens and pencils from room to room in my house (because that’ s what you do in college). The hysterical thing was that we didn’t only have our college books and notebooks to tote around, we’d also have diaper bags and dolls- because of course we’d have babies by the time we were in college! Now, babies + college is definitely possible (especially at BYU…), and I’m sure that it works out quite well for a lot of people, but I think I had my own personal sequencing a bit mixed up. Growing up in a Navy town, I was taught that a college degree was “optional.” Marriage, however, was not. If I was lucky, I’d marry an officer. I’d pray for shore duty. Until he drove me crazy and then I’d pray for him to go out to sea. It was a really interesting place to grow up, especially considering that I didn’t realize that the pressures to create a country-serving family were even there. I had some problems in school- I didn’t really have too many friends and spent a lot of my time with my family and babysitting. Any extracurriculars I got involved in were because my cousin had joined. On top of all of it, I didn’t understand why the guidance counselors wouldn’t let me take classes that interested me. I went to them to ask if I could take Physics, and they told me that “sophomores don’t take physics.” I really, really didn’t get THAT logic- and went ahead and “took it at my own risk.” I figured out quickly that any rules they had weren’t necessarily rules, just standard procedure.
We moved away from Connecticut when I was 17, so I had my senior year at a different school entirely. I went from a class size of over a thousand to a class size of about 82. When I went to my homeroom the first morning I was there, I was told that I had caused all of the lockers to shift (for everyone with a last name that started with Sw and below, anyway) and, even worse, I had displaced the top ten. This school was ALL ABOUT preparing for college. I had always wanted to go to college, but it was only moving to MA that I was given the information that I needed to find out where I wanted to go, and how to get myself there. It was about this time that I stopped worrying about marriage all together. I didn’t (and don’t) believe in soul-mates. I don’t think that there is one specific person created for every other person. What I thought was that my choices would ultimately lead me to a position in life where I’d be ready for commitment, and someone else would have made choices that brought him to that same place, and we’d find each other. Romantic, huh? At the time, though, I had a teacher named Mr. Duquette. He made us memorize a saying, “True lovers don’t just find each other along they way. They’re in each other all along.” I can’t find where the quote comes from, I may have gotten it a bit wrong. I usually grabbed onto and believed EVERYTHING that Mr. Duquette said, but what about this? Just a romantic notion- and as I analyzed myself right at that moment, I didn’t feel anyone with me, or waiting for me. I never imagined there would be someone out there looking for someone else, not me necessarily, but someone with my qualities, the qualities that I would someday have because of my experiences. So, fast foward to my decision of where to go to college. I did NOT want to go to BYU. An expectation was set by my community (mostly, churchy community) that I go. I didn’t even apply. I applied to small, catholic schools- mostly Jesuit, and choose Scranton. After about 2 wonderful years there, I got antsy. I knew it was time for somthing to change, but what? I went home for Christmas and drove my parents crazy talking about a mission, no, maybe BYU? no…a mission! By the time I decided, I was heading into my junior year at Scranton. I had to break it to my best friends in the WORLD that I was leaving before senior year, I had to get my life together and realign every goal I had ever set, and prepare to go where ever I was sent. I think this was the first time in my life that I started thinking about marriage in a serious way. I knew it was going to be a priority, I’ve always wanted marriage and a family, and while I had “dated” some people in Scranton- it had amounted to a whole lotta nothing. None of my peers were even thinking about marriage yet, but I still felt a draw. Whether it was my LDS upbringing, my Navy upbringing, the fact that I was now 3 years beyond the age where my Mom and Dad were when they had gotten married, I don’t know. But I felt the pressure. I’ve always been more interested in people who were a bit older than me, and my silly, illogical fear was that by the time I got to where I was going (after the mission…) all the “good ones” would be taken. It sounds so silly now, but I was seriously freaked out that I was making the wrong choice, and delaying a life that I might not have the opportunity to choose again. I had to make a choice: go somewhere where I could possibly meet someone and start THAT life, or go on a mission, delaying it all for another year and a half. I knew, though, that I was meant to go on my mission. Before any serious doubts surfaced, I had my call- and I was preparing to go to England. I just figured that whoever I was meant to be with would wait for me, somehow, without even knowing who I was. If it was meant to be, it was meant to be.
So, I went to England. Again- so many reasons why I was meant to be there when I was there, but too length to discuss just now. I had decided, before I left, to apply to BYU as a transfer student for when I got home. It was crazy- the place I had hated and despised and made fun of and rejected, I was now applying to. I was accepted, given a leave of absence for the time left of my mission, and that was that. I knew where I was going when I got home. I didn’t feel much about it, except that it was right. When I got here, it was MAJOR culture shock. I was the only woman in most of my classes. Aside from the girls that I lived with, I didn’t spend much time with other girls. Most of my friends were the guys from my classes, and my social life consisted of class, study groups, work…and that’s about it. I didn’t expect to run into the same kinds of warnings I got in my first high school, the “there now little lady, can you really handle this class?” kind of warnings. It was an interesting mentality to overcome. When I went for job interviews on campus or talked to advisers, they always asked, “Are you married? Are you engaged? Dating seriously?” As if that would seriously change the advice they’d give me. At one point when John and I had first started dating, I was encouraged to get my doctorate in Comparative Religion. With a degree like that, and “being a woman,” I would have a place at BYU waiting for me. I have since decided that CR is not the path I want to take, but I wonder if the advice would have been different if I was engaged when I asked for it.
It’s like I’m in some kind of weird, “other-wordly” place. It’s not the same mentality as Groton, Dalton, or Scranton- that’s for sure. In some ways better, in some ways worse. But I guess the thing that remains consistent is that I will choose my own path no matter where I am. It’s too hard to conform to what people expect, it’s much better to follow your passion and your goals and your FUN to where you want to go next.
So, now I’m 24. Not to far from 18 (I’d like to think, anyway…) and I’m getting married. Do I believe that John and I were two pieces of one cosmic whole torn apart in the cosmos before being thrown to earth to find each other? Um, no. I don’t. But I DO know that I’ve made choices. I’ve gone places, I’ve felt the urgency to leave one place and go to another for reasons I didn’t understand at the time. I’ve needed certain experiences. I’ve gone through a few things that afterward I thought, “Now, well, I needed that!” with no specific explanation of WHY I needed that. I know that John has experienced the same thing. Do I think that maybe, just maybe, there is someone who knows us both so well- and has some amazing ability to get two people in the same place at the same time, first guiding them through a series of experiences in order to allow them to work out their own happiness? Now THAT’S a yes. So, in a way- without me even recognizing it, we’ve been there together all along. Maybe to a God who sees all time in one instant- it was just a waiting game, and when we were listening, we were encouraged to wait. And I guess that’s the point, I’m finally understanding what Mr. Duquette meant.
