They say when you know, you know, you know? I mean, how many times have we been told as women that we are supposed to meet ‘the one’ and when we do the entire universe will conspire to show us, tell us, shout it from the rooftops for us – that they’re it. That sounds incredible, doesn’t it? And also super highly unlikely. Which, being a bit of worrier, you’d think I would have covered in my bases of the occasional full blown worry meltdown. Full transparency, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time worrying about it. I swear to you, it just found me. Love, I mean. That real, soul grabbing, life altering, world skewing kind of love. And now here I am, married to that little world skewer of mine. That sounds like a giant skewer doesn’t it? Like a big ass stick for marshmallow roasting. Ha. Ok back to it. It’s not to say that I didn’t wonder when that kind of love would find me, or didn’t spend some serious time looking at the male population and wondering when they were supposed to turn into soulmate worthy individuals. I just didn’t spend much time mapping it out. Which, for me, is rare.
There are aspects of marriage that I’ve dreamed of living out for realistically, the last eight years or so. I don’t want to sit here and say that I was one of those little girls who spent hours doodling her first name in front of some little boy’s last name, or designing the dream wedding dress in her head. I was not one of those girls. Nothing against those girls – those girls are great girls, those girls are wonderful girls! I just wasn’t one of them. I was definitely into the idea of boys – despite the fact that a psychic once literally told me the boy I had a crush on (in first grade, mind you) didn’t return my feelings, at all. I’m not even kidding you, I was seven and she was a five dollar psychic at the beach. Screw you, lady. Anyways, I had geckos and horses, tortoises and a gigantic bull frog, I had dogs and a lot of Sims to play. I was busy.
High school came around, and that was a fabulous time. Loved it. Loved it. Even then, the idea that I’d marry anyone seemed daunting and scary – like agreeing to clean out every closet in an entire house, but times a million – a lot to commit too. I dated and dated and dated. I figured that marriage was something that would feel right when the time was right. I knew that if and when I met my ‘soulmate’, marriage would be the business. The best. The coolest thing ever. I knew this because I was raised by two total find-you-in-any-lifetime type lovebirds. I’m serious. My parents met 32 years ago. They were engaged within months of meeting. My Dad was buying perfume for a woman he’d been dating for FIVE YEARS. But he said the minute he met my mom, he knew he’d never felt anything remotely close to that. Boom. Total soulmates, see? So I was raised on the idea that when you know, you know. They just knew.
Well let me tell you that the more dating I did the more I was sure that forever seemed like a long ass time to spend with anyone. Then I met Keevin. Which is again, a story for him to tell because he slays it. I will say that I was dating someone from home (Southern California, whats up!) at the time that we met. Yeah, that had an expiration date obviously, but it somehow felt safer going away to school with as many ties to home as possible. And I cannot say that I met Keevin and instantly knew that I’d spend forever with him. We were 18! I could barely figure out how to do my own laundry, let alone be prepared to pick a life partner. I will say that after meeting him and spending an afternoon in his presence with my heart literally beating out of my chest and my stomach harboring what felt like an entire zoo of animals beyond butterflies, I dumped that high school boyfriend. Savage, I know. I didn’t know a lot. I mean, I didn’t know how to do laundry, or that it’s probably important to eat things besides soft serve and white rice at the dining hall, or that for Oregon’s weather you need actual warm clothes, not things from the winter section of J Crew. I didn’t know my major, didn’t know my minors, and for the first four months didn’t know how to get to an entire section of campus. I did, however, know this. No one, no single soul I’d ever met, had ever in any shape or way made me feel what I felt the moment I met Mr. Keevin Craig, the guy from Alaska. It was like meeting a handsome stranger that deep down, you knew you’d known before in some really lovely way. He was familiar and all too rare all at once. That sweet, hilarious, witty, bizarrely smart, big hearted, old soul, known him for a thousand lifetimes kind of guy that I’d end up marrying. So I guess what they said is true. When you know, you you know, you know? Oh and PS. Forever just doesn’t even seem long enough, now. PPS. I can now do laundry, although admittedly – Keevin does it so much better. Seriously. You should see the way this guy folds a towel.
