Suddenly *Not So* Single Journey

Well…she asked…a tale in three parts…

Author: thenicknick

Rachel came to me after dinner the other night.

Rachel: So, do you think you and dad got divorced because you married so young?

me: No, I think we got divorced because we got married.

And I was trying to lighten the mood somewhat, but mostly that statement is true.  We wouldn’t have had to divorce had we never married, but we really weren’t meant to be.  I knew it.  And if pressed, I would think he’d admit to it as well.

Rachel: No, really.  I’m serious, Mom.

Mom.  Wow.  She was serious.  (To her, it’s the equivalent of me calling my mom ‘mother.’)

me: *sigh* I was forced.  Can we please drop it now?

Oh, but Rachel is like a pitbull when she wants an answer.  And so while I thought the discussion was over, it wasn’t.  Sure enough.  She sent me a text after school yesterday.

Rachel: Were you forced to marry dad because you were pregnant?

Hmmm.  Well, what do you say to that?  I mean, sort of.  So, here’s the story, that will clearly have to be told in multiple parts, just to keep the length down.  Let’s face it, there’s so much more to marriage and getting married and being married and trying to make it work.  So much.  And in this, there is very little black and white, but instead a lovely shade of gray, all swirly.

So, here goes, Rachel.  Your history, because it means so much to you.

Part One: So, we’re getting married…

J and I started living together in the fall of 1991.  I had completed my first year of college, changed my major, and had to take a semester off when I couldn’t get enough classes to be full time.  We lived together out of convenience.

We were friends.  We hung out together.  He was fun.  Life was fun.  (When I wasn’t working like a dog to keep us in kibble.)  And I was dating some.  And your father was when we first moved in together.  She saw me getting ready one night (I was wearing the famous black bathing suit…) and then she broke up with him.

Well, the night before MY tonsillectomy, he asked me out.

me: How come you don’t date?

J: I don’t need anyone else.  I have you.

me: I don’t want to date you.  I was never going to live with a boyfriend before marriage.  What happens to our living arrangement if we break up?

J: What if we never break up?

And you know how I like security and yearn for stability.  So, we started dating that very night.  And the next morning, I was whisked away to the hospital by gramma and his was the first face I saw when I woke up.  You know that story.  I told it on your tonsillectomy post.

Well, what I didn’t tell you was that while I was in the hospital, daddy bought a sleeper sofa for me to convalesce on (used, don’t get too excited) and he made jell-o and pudding and there were more roses and a balloon.  He really knew how to woo.

That was November.  (See, told you Novembers were big for me.)  And then in May we went away together, our first and only real vacation on our own.  It was a big one…Caesar’s Pocono Palace Resort in Pennsylvania.  It was a couples resort.  (I paid.)

We had a lot of fun, even if it didn’t go precisely as I imagined.  I was thinking R&R, daddy was thinking FUN!  So we were up early and stayed out late.  And tried EVERYTHING.  We even went to the shows at night where we were humiliated not once…but twice, on our first and last nights as it turned out.

The first night, we’re watching the show and the comedian is working the room.  He decides to survey the audience.

comedian: So who’s here on a honeymoon?

And a bunch of couples raise their hands and everyone applauds.

comedian: So who’s here on an anniversary?

More hands are raised.   More applause.

comedian: And who’s just shacking up?

Well, your father raised BOTH hands, the audience went wild, and I was ready to crawl under the table.  As short as I am, I was halfway there.  Needless to say, I don’t remember much else that happened after that.

Then on our final day there, we had some pictures taken.  You know the ones, you’ve seen them.  The photographer came to the room for the shoot and kept saying things like…

photographer: Lean closer to your husband.  Put your arm around your wife.

You get the idea.

So, when she finally left, I was feeling like a fraud and still smarting from the shacking up comment days before.  I wasn’t that girl.  Really.  And I was lying rather sadly on the round bed when your father came over to check on me.

J: What’s wrong?

me: Nothing.

See, our conversations never changed.

And then somehow he managed to rather smoothly pull a ring out of his pocket.  He was on both knees, so I told everyone he was begging, not asking as he spoke those all too cliched words.

J: Will you marry me?

Naturally, I said ‘yes.’

And that night, I had my payback at the show.  I really can’t tell that whole story…but understand that it ended with your father’s shorts around his ankles in front of the entire audience.  And it was an accident.  I was a little too enthusiastic about the game we were involved in.

So, we immediately set a date: March 13, 1993.  Sound familiar?  Yeah.  That was our anniversary.  And I started planning.  It was all very exciting, really.

There were warning signs that we shouldn’t marry.  He was still very into going out and I thought/hoped/prayed that he would grow out of it.  He was very into doing his own thing during free time…bowling league, dart league, and…stuff.  There’s more, but it’s irrelevant now.

There’s more about me though, stuff you know…like I’m stubborn.  And I was determined that it would work.  I had decided that it was time to grow up and stop breaking up over stupid things.  (I once broke up with a guy because he stepped in dog poo…okay, I was 12.)  And I thought he would change.

And then I worried he wouldn’t.  And I thought if we weren’t even happy, blissfully stupid happy now, then what were the chances it would improve.  Then, with three months before the wedding…I found out I was pregnant.

Yeah, there was no avoiding letting that little kitten out of the bag, since now you are old enough to do the math.  I was really sick and really alone, but for Jennie**.  And I just decided to call off the wedding.  I claimed it was because I didn’t want people to think we were merely getting married because I was pregnant.  (Forget about the fact that we’d already been engaged for six months…)  I told him we’d marry after the baby, after I got my figure back.  (And that would have kept me single!)

Well, we went to show your grandparents (daddy’s mom and dad) the first sonogram pictures on Valentine’s Day.  Let me tell you how that went.

grandpa, looking past your father to address me: Did you know you were pregnant when you canceled the wedding?

me: Yes.

grandpa: Well, you are getting married.

me: No, I’m not.

And the discussion raged on.  And you know how stubborn I can be.  But I was also very sick.  And so I caved.  It seemed a small price to pay for family peace.  And so in four short weeks, we (me, your gramma, and Margie) pulled off a wedding…and a reception.

Come back tomorrow for Part Two: The Fiasco

**The alone part wasn’t about my family not being supportive, it was about the lack of support from the boyfriend/fiance/almost husband.  No familial feelings should have been hurt in the writing of this post.  Mom was a champ.  And Allison was maybe 16…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 12:05 am and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.