He and I worked together and after weeks of on-shift flirting, he finally asked me if I wanted to go see a movie with him. I was thrilled - after years of unrequited crushes, someone was actually interested me. Added bonus: he was a couple years older than me, he was cute, and he had a car. Of course I said yes.
It was October. We went to see Doom. That's about the only thing I could tell you about that movie - we basically just made out in the back of the theatre the whole time.
That was fine with me.
The movie ended. I didn't have to be home yet so we went for a drive. We found a place to park and picked up where we left off at the theatre. It was great. I was even alright with him putting his hand on my leg...until he started moving it up my thigh. That was when I pulled back.
"Come on."
"No. I want to go home."
Looking back now, I can see how easy it would have been for things to go another way but he listened. He drove me home. We said good night, I went inside, and he went home.
After that night, he stopped coming on my break with me at work and stopped answering my calls. About a week later, he broke up with me. Not long after that, he started seeing one of our co-workers.
It sucked.
It also started a cycle for me, one of making really awful decisions related to relationships. I went from the pushy, older boy, to the boy who led me on and dropped me as soon as his ex came around, to boys who only wanted sex, to moody boys who played it hot and cold and left me feeling confused all the time.
And for a really long time, I thought all those things were normal. That they were par for the course when it came to dating and relationships. That love was supposed to be hard. It was supposed to hurt. It was supposed to require an insane amount of work for very little pay off.
I know. Some days, I wish I could go back in time and give my younger self a good smack.
I have some theories as to how I ended up with such a ridiculously warped concept of what love and relationships are supposed to look like. The biggest one stems from my relationship with my parents. My mom wasn't around when my brother and I were kids. My dad did a great job up until I was about 10 or so, then he gave up on us, too. For the longest time, I didn't think that messed up dynamic affected me. It's only been in recent years that I've started to understand just how much having your parents check out on you at a young age screws with your head.
Pair the absence of loving parents with love as its projected in media - books, movies, music - and the drama of high school romance, and I think it would have been stranger to believe love could look any other way.
(my favourite photo of us, courtesy of the lovely Lena Price @ Price Photography)
So much has changed. Healing has happened. Forgiveness has happened. Peace has settled in. And I am in the very early stages of planning my wedding.
My fiancé, Jeff, and I have been together for four years as of Feb. 15. And, cheesy as it's going to sound, these four years have easily been the best I've ever had, as far as relationships go. Things haven't always been easy, of course, but these last four years have taken all the things I thought I knew about relationships and turned them around in the most challenging, but wonderful ways. I feel so blessed to call him my partner and I am so excited to see what our future holds.
This would normally be the part where I'd refer to him as my other half or say something along the lines of "he completes me" or "I've found my missing puzzle piece" or whatever. But I'm not going to go there.
It's sweet rhetoric, yes, but to say it would be a lie.
I love Jeff.
I love him in a way that is deep and real and tangible. He is my best friend and I trust him to be kind and gentle to my heart.
But as much as I love Jeff, he is not my God and I am not his.
And honestly? Thank GOD for that.
oh, that rugged cross! My salvation!
where Your love poured out over me!
And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power
Colossians 2:10
I'm not a relationship expert by any stretch of the imagination but, when I reflect on some of the different stories I've heard, there is a common narrative when it comes to struggle: more often than not, the problem comes down to expectations.
To be more specific: the expectation for another human being to somehow fill an empty space in our lives when fact of the matter is they simply can't do that by nature of being human.
Or, in the words of the pastor last Sunday: "Don't look for someone else to complete you. They're broken, too."
Alternative reading: "People make lousy Gods."
That said: I'm a big believer in relationships pursued for the purpose of mutual enrichment. I believe in being kind, in giving, in encouraging others as often as I can and seek to be in the company of like minded people as often as possible. I do think it's so important to surround yourself with people you can pour into and who can pour into you.
"The healthiest people give the healthiest love."
And if, at 25, I've learned anything about relationships (romantic, and otherwise), it is this: I love better when I know how loved I am in Christ. I love better when Christ is my identity, my foundation, not another person.
Loving Christ first makes it possible to release others from my expectations and love them freely - because that's what Christ did for us.
We are His portion, and He is our prize, drawn to redemption by the grace in his eyes
If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside my chest
I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way
He loves us.
