Tuesday, February 4, 2014

What a Difference a Year Makes

It has been quite a while since I have written a post and to say a lot has changed would be an understatement. My intention was to write a new post on New Year's Day, so let's pretend I stopped being busy, lazy, (fill in blank excuse) and actually posted as intended. Mental flashback to New Year's 2013—I was ringing in the New Year with a handful of friends in my Man Cave. For those who do not know me, that's code for my basement and was coined "The Man Cave" because I didn't see the need to have a man in order to call my basement what every man on earth calls the space they use to get away from it all. I had just ended a whirl wind of a horrible relationship. If you can recall from earlier desperate and depressing posts, ours was one that sucked the life from every inch of my soul. There were days that we were happy, but the games we played, lack of communication and trust, and overall difference in lifestyles and maturity levels, finally cleared up the fact that we were just not meant to be. So out with the old and in with the new happened at the drop of the ball on the very first second of 2013.

In he walks. I never understood how so many people that I know end up with people from their past. It's usually someone they went to school with but never really talked to or someone who was friends with their brother, etc. The idea of overlooking the person who you fall in love with being right there under your nose years prior without your knowledge seemed like a cheesy, vomit inducing fairytale. I guess sometimes things do work out that way. It happened to me. On that very second of 2013, I was locking lips with the person I had met ten years prior in college and who I will share the rest of my life with.

Since then, my life has taken a full on turn. I look back and can visualize a fork in the road with one road being covered in dead, overgrown thorns and the other filled with colorful blooms and bright green grass. Yes, cheesy and vomit inducing but it's true! I have learned to live without being fearful of the person I'm with leaving me or hurting me. If I want to know what he is thinking, all I have to do is ask because I know he will be honest. I don't have have to worry what he is up to when I am not around or what state he'll be in when he comes home or if he will even come home. I don't have to wonder if he loves me or thinks I'm pretty because he tells me several times a day. After so many years of struggling through one-sided relationships that just weren't right, one finally stuck.

This year we celebrated the New Year—our one year anniversary—by enjoying a night out together and reminiscing about one of the best years of our lives. The year that we found each other, again. I wouldn't trade that year for the world. We fell in love, purchased kayaks and traveled down rivers, saw more live music than I can even count, celebrated birthdays and every single first holiday together, played in the sand, laughed, cried, and got engaged. I truly hope 2014 is just as magical.

You have to understand that I never thought these things could happen to me. I was so programmed to just take what was in front of me and make the best of it, that misery became an expected house guest. For anyone who has struggled or is currently struggling in love, my advise to you would be not to give up hope that the person who is right for you is out there and that life is too short to let misery take the wheel. Do not exhaust yourself on relationships that suck the joy from you. In the words of my dear friend, "enjoy more and endure less." Life occasionally takes turns when you least expect it.

Cheers to 2014. May it bring adventure, growth, and love.