I have photos on my phone of my husband from a little more than three years before we met. There’s also photos of him on my phone from just six months before we met. It’s true: this city of 8 million people is actually quite small. A few months after we started dating in 2018, I wrote about the way our lives overlapped for a few years before we finally intentionally (a la Tinder) found each other at Frank’s Cocktail Lounge (RIP) in Fort Greene:
on january 21st i went on my first date with bill. we had a few key friends in common, but didn’t personally know each other. eventually, we pieced together moments from the past few years where our paths crossed:
i went to his band’s show in october of 2014 because my friend adrianne was producing it. it was halloween themed and after pursuing my camera roll this week, i found a photo i took of bill playing bass in a skeleton costume.
summer of 2015, we were both at a festival, as was adrianne, and i remember her talking to bill. i have a memory of her going over to him and thinking, “oh that’s her cool music friend.”
as recently as this past summer we were at the same party, where again, we didn’t talk or really know each other, but i have a boomerang video that i took for adrianne on my phone of her, bill, and a slew of others.
I moved to New York City when I was 24 years old and immediately lived alone. Being a twin and growing up in a conservative christian environment, I desperately craved the opportunity to carve out my own identity and my own path. Freedom to me meant living my life without anyone or any rules to shape the way I moved through the world.
As I got older, this feeling only intensified, especially as things with my family structure became shaky. If anyone was going to be responsible for my finances, my future, my happiness, the way I lived my life and my wellbeing, it was going to be me.
It was pure survival.
The men I met and dated never felt trustworthy enough or ready to weave our lives together. The ones that didn’t fit my narrow view of who was an appropriate life partner were a disruption to the world that I had created for myself. Though looking back, and a note to anyone reading this who is single: they were fun! I should have done a better job of just having fun with them and not trying to force fit them into a potential partner. Hindsight!
Me and Bill’s honeymoon phase was strong and all consuming. I would find myself in a lovesick daze just thinking about him, infected with the bliss of finding my person. Two weeks into meeting him I was telling my friends that we were going to get married. When we went to visit his family after eight months of dating, I remember telling his mom, “We’ve never fought and I can’t imagine what we would ever fight over.”
A month later we moved in together and had our first multi-day fight. Integrating our two very independent, somewhat established lives under one roof was like a cold splash of water in the face for me. In a lot of ways, I felt like my identity was threatened - I was now a part of a pair confined to four walls and felt the “rules” of what being a couple meant closing in on me.
My mind ping ponged between competing desires: one to be on my own and free and the other to be in a life long partnership. They way I was socialized as a young girl, especially in christian youth groups, I had a nagging voice in the back of my mind that told me that I was required to sacrifice myself and my needs for a successful forever relationship.
It’s been five years now since we went on our first date and I can’t decide if that’s long or short. When I reflect on those early anxious feelings, I see a woman who was so scared of opening up and allowing someone else to come into her life in a way that might change it for the better (as if anyone could help me shape my life better than myself!). I wrestled with the idea that something that I always wanted required me to let go of some control. But what I’ve realized is that the bubble that I built around myself nearly stole the perspective and gifts that my partner had to share. Bill’s “let’s see what happens” vibe was exactly what my “I’ve had a plan for this my whole life” vibe desperately needed.
In one therapy session together, I had this epiphany: We are just at the tip of the iceberg of knowing and understanding each other fully, especially if we plan to be together until the day we die. Our understanding of each other is only going to get deeper and the space we hold for each other’s individual and collective needs are only going to get bigger. The possibility that this idea opened up for me blew my mind! We have so much time to explore how this relationship unfolds, there is no need to get precious about some of the nebulous details when the foundation is strong.
I can’t wait for these next five years.
Get this week’s playlist here.
Sending you a lot of love this Sunday,
Meghan