Engaged

I was two when I met my sister--the first family besides my parents I had ever known. She wasn't much to look at then and she wasn't all that exciting, at least not at first; but there was something magic about her. Something that made the whole world love her just for existing. Something that made me want to keep her part of my life forever. As our numbers swelled from 2 to 6 I learned that family was my destiny--all I was, and all I hoped to someday be.

I was fifteen when I finalized my plan for the rest of my life.  I would be married somewhere among my three breezy years through college then magic and babies sliding down rainbows of bliss and stability, eight perfectly behaved children in two perfect rows rejoicing at their luck to come to such an ideal home--one naturally without tears, disagreement, or dust. I would be a perfect cook, a brilliant piano teacher, and I would never lose my girlish figure or charm. It was really a good plan.

I was twenty two when I woke up one day in Korea in an experience that changed forever not only who I was but how I saw everyone else. I learned that love is messy, perfection is overrated (and unattainable), sometimes you call magic a miracle, and that there is sometimes more charm in spontaneity than precision. 

I was twenty three when I earned my bachelors degree and went into a field that I love. I was accepted into my top two choices for graduate school and began the journey that would carry me to start me on the path of fulfilling all of my professional dreams. I was twenty six when I earned my doctorate degree and left school forever. I was twenty six and one day when I began to despair of forming my very own family.

I was twenty seven when I started dating someone new--someone who felt different somehow than anyone I had ever dated before. I was very nearly scared off several times because this one carried a sticking sensation that I wasn't sure I was ready for, but that same stickiness kept me there somehow. And we fell in love, almost like magic.

I was twenty eight when one of my very favorite people on the planet asked me to be his wife. Delight, anxiety, anticipation, and a dash of untinted terror. He is sticky. Not in the jam-hands sort of way that makes me feel like I need to wash him off but in the re-usable stickers way--the way I find him attached to my thoughts and plans, the way I see him when I shouldn't be able to. The way he has become so much a part of who I am it is hard to imagine when he was not a part of me. He cut away the sluff I had hastily tied to cover my despair and filled in the space with shiny new hope. What he lacks in spontaneity he more than makes up for in delightfully dimpled charm. I gave up long ago on destiny and perfection, but I have finally found my own kind of sticky magic. And I think I'm going to hold onto it forever.