A Hiatus Ended
“Reader, I married him.”
My enamel Jane Eyre pin declares as I sit in the car wearing my husband’s dark jean jacket, driving back from our honeymoon.
Married? So suddenly? How indeed did this take place?
As you may know by looking at the long hiatus I have taken on writing here something must have been brewing in the Ingress' silence. Well I met a man and fell in love.
Many of my posts had been full of relationship advice and personal details, the lost wedding dress for example. I did not want my relationship to be formed on what I could write about it, what I could brag about, and I didn't want my beloved to feel that every action in our relationship might end up being read by total strangers on a blog post.
He has since been challenging me to take up my mission of words again and to write, it has been eating me up, not because I have words, but because I don't. Just write, he says, you'll feel better to put your hands to something you love. But I am afraid, when I stopped writing I was on the top of my game, what if I am rusty and have nothing good to say? "Just write."
Brian and I met when we were both standing up in the wedding party of our friends. I had been roommates with the bride, he had been bible study brothers with the groom. The couple had given us an awkward nudge to speak to each other by not so subtly pointing out our singleness in front of the other married bridesmaids.
At the wedding I was also challenged by the friends I was riding back with to go talk to Brian after I caught the bouquet. I was determined to be dignified and not treat this as some bridesmaid-groomsman flirtation, it had been nearly a year since I had flirted with anyone having had my heart severely broken by a fellow student. So I got up to "get a cup of coffee" and declared that if I saw Brian I would talk to him.
There he was, being a woman of my word I walked up to him and started talking with him, more because I was fulfilling my word than anything, and I ended up giving him my phone number. As I drove back to Chicago with my friends I wondered if he would ever use it. Soon that wonder was put to rest, he texted me, and everyday we wrote essentially letters to one another, each text being multiple paragraphs long, and soon we were video-chatting, each time lasting hours into the night. Once we talked for 4hrs long and each talk after that felt like it ended too soon. Brian believes we might have even broke that record at one point, I am not sure but it is very possible. We spent a few weeks at it.
That's when he finally asked me to coffee.
Now I had been to "coffee" with several different guys, only one actually said it was a date when he asked and my roommate cautioned me to only take it as a date if Brian said it was a date. So I asked him, "This is a date right?"
He misunderstood my meaning though, I wanted to know if this instance was a date and he thought I was asking if we were dating. we laugh about it now that we are married, but at the time it was understandable, even though we were constantly talking to each other and his friends considered me his girlfriend, that commitment was daunting, it was a similar season for both of us, having been through a similar year of heart break, rejection, depression and surrender. I didn't go to the wedding expecting to meet anyone, and he went to repair old friendships that he had abandoned.
We were therefore in a place of timid bravery, and worked to be clear with each other, after some tears on my part and a declaration that it wasn't a date as in dating, we were clear that this "coffee" was a date that might lead to dating.
He arrived and we went to a geeky coffee shop that was a favorite of mine, Worm Hole, where we actually ran into friends of mine that I hadn't seen in three or four years! It was as though G-d was aligning opportunities to reaffirm for us the work He was doing by giving us peace and approval from people who meant a lot to me. After spending 4 hours in the bookshop nearby, just talking and looking at books but not buying any, we got dinner, after that we spent an hour with my roommate talking before heading out to see Tolkien, we both disliked the movie and felt it did not do our hero justice. We then spent another hour with my roommate drinking tea. At 11pm I reminded him that he had a long drive ahead of him, I walked him out and he asked if we could talk for a few minutes more. This was a serious tone, I felt my heart sink, the gnawing fear in my heart that he was going to friend-zone me shot up to lodge my heart in my throat. I nodded.
Sitting in his car we began slowly the heavy subject of the future of us. "Given the circumstances, I'd like to see you in person once more before we consider becoming official." I was stunned! And I conveyed to him that I had had a nightmare that week of him friend-zoning me, it was a serious nightmare the kind which you can't alter and when waking up find yourself in a cold sweat. I had never experienced anything like it. the nearest being at the height of the Everdyore scare while staying up until 3am reading Dracula and sleeping with the window open at my roommate's insistence.
Brian confessed he had a similar dream that week and had been a nervous wreck the whole day. We laughed and agreed that we should go out once more. I had strongly hinted that I wanted him to ask my dad for permission to date me.
The next week my family was in town for my graduation. Somehow I had actually managed to fulfill my undergrad requirements even after the fire. My mother then suggested that I invite Brian to enjoy shabbat dinner with us. Little did I know as I nervously invited him that this was the invitation he had been waiting for. How was he going to ask permission from my dad if he didn't get the chance to talk with him?
Talk to him he did. As my parents, Brian, and I walked on the river walk, one of my favorite elements of life in Chicago, he asked my dad if he could ask him a question. this was apparently an anticipated subject to everyone present except myself. I was keeping my heart in check, limiting my acceptance of perception concerning his feelings for me. Too many times I had read into a man's actions, now I was startled to find him and my father walking off ahead as my mom smiled at me knowingly.
As we followed, my heart was pounding. Thoughts stormed my mind, Brian really likes me, he is really talking to my dad, he really came to celebrate Shabbat with us, this is not a dream. They shook hands and then dad called him back, they prayed together, Brian leading. Then Brian and I were left to ourselves. I took his arm, he asked me if I would like to date him officially, suddenly I had a boychik, a sweetheart, a boyfriend, my first, my only boyfriend.
By the time I came to visit his family a week or so later to have dinner with his parents, both of our families were coming to understand that we had found the "one" or rather that G-d had brought us into the very season we both needed to be in to establish our marriage. We rarely flirted, instead we built our relationship on friendship in commitment to honesty in the face of fear.
We breached the hard subjects, we were vulnerable, the conflicts we had we sorted out before sleeping on them. Eventually as my job commitment wore down and his family came to love me I spent most days of the week living with his parents and sisters in their guest room. Sometime in early July we talked about getting married, by August our families were planning an October wedding, in September we were engaged, and on October 12th we were married in an historic mansion.
Exactly six months after we met, Brian stomped on the glass, our old lives being obliterated with it and with the covenant we signed. All the experience we had gained from heart break and patience, struggles and final surrender of our hearts to the direction of G-d, had lead us to the peaceful and easy road to the altar. Conflicts had happened, but we used them to seek to understand one another and to improve our love rather than wound it.
As we turned under the cover of the tallis, to face our friends and family who gathered to witness our union, my heart was fluttering. Pronounced as husband and wife I turned my face to my husband and he greeted me with a kiss. My first kiss. How sweet that kiss was, so worth the wait. Worth the defiance of my great-grandmother's suggestion to kiss before I turned 16. A kiss that defied pressure and compromise. A kiss that was encouraged by my own parents' example, by fairytales, and a determined little girl deciding that it was a gift that could have no match in value with anything other than a solemn covenant.
Reader, I married my best friend. I feel as though I have always known him, that we have always been friends. I am encouraged by him to continue this pursuit of the Pilgrim's Ingress. Not just in writing on this blog but what this blog's name stands for, the Pilgrim (me) walking in the way I am called, the path G-d is leading and preparing. My husband encourages me toward righteousness.
My enamel Jane Eyre pin declares as I sit in the car wearing my husband’s dark jean jacket, driving back from our honeymoon.
Married? So suddenly? How indeed did this take place?
As you may know by looking at the long hiatus I have taken on writing here something must have been brewing in the Ingress' silence. Well I met a man and fell in love.
Many of my posts had been full of relationship advice and personal details, the lost wedding dress for example. I did not want my relationship to be formed on what I could write about it, what I could brag about, and I didn't want my beloved to feel that every action in our relationship might end up being read by total strangers on a blog post.
He has since been challenging me to take up my mission of words again and to write, it has been eating me up, not because I have words, but because I don't. Just write, he says, you'll feel better to put your hands to something you love. But I am afraid, when I stopped writing I was on the top of my game, what if I am rusty and have nothing good to say? "Just write."
Brian and I met when we were both standing up in the wedding party of our friends. I had been roommates with the bride, he had been bible study brothers with the groom. The couple had given us an awkward nudge to speak to each other by not so subtly pointing out our singleness in front of the other married bridesmaids.
At the wedding I was also challenged by the friends I was riding back with to go talk to Brian after I caught the bouquet. I was determined to be dignified and not treat this as some bridesmaid-groomsman flirtation, it had been nearly a year since I had flirted with anyone having had my heart severely broken by a fellow student. So I got up to "get a cup of coffee" and declared that if I saw Brian I would talk to him.
There he was, being a woman of my word I walked up to him and started talking with him, more because I was fulfilling my word than anything, and I ended up giving him my phone number. As I drove back to Chicago with my friends I wondered if he would ever use it. Soon that wonder was put to rest, he texted me, and everyday we wrote essentially letters to one another, each text being multiple paragraphs long, and soon we were video-chatting, each time lasting hours into the night. Once we talked for 4hrs long and each talk after that felt like it ended too soon. Brian believes we might have even broke that record at one point, I am not sure but it is very possible. We spent a few weeks at it.
That's when he finally asked me to coffee.
Now I had been to "coffee" with several different guys, only one actually said it was a date when he asked and my roommate cautioned me to only take it as a date if Brian said it was a date. So I asked him, "This is a date right?"
He misunderstood my meaning though, I wanted to know if this instance was a date and he thought I was asking if we were dating. we laugh about it now that we are married, but at the time it was understandable, even though we were constantly talking to each other and his friends considered me his girlfriend, that commitment was daunting, it was a similar season for both of us, having been through a similar year of heart break, rejection, depression and surrender. I didn't go to the wedding expecting to meet anyone, and he went to repair old friendships that he had abandoned.
We were therefore in a place of timid bravery, and worked to be clear with each other, after some tears on my part and a declaration that it wasn't a date as in dating, we were clear that this "coffee" was a date that might lead to dating.
He arrived and we went to a geeky coffee shop that was a favorite of mine, Worm Hole, where we actually ran into friends of mine that I hadn't seen in three or four years! It was as though G-d was aligning opportunities to reaffirm for us the work He was doing by giving us peace and approval from people who meant a lot to me. After spending 4 hours in the bookshop nearby, just talking and looking at books but not buying any, we got dinner, after that we spent an hour with my roommate talking before heading out to see Tolkien, we both disliked the movie and felt it did not do our hero justice. We then spent another hour with my roommate drinking tea. At 11pm I reminded him that he had a long drive ahead of him, I walked him out and he asked if we could talk for a few minutes more. This was a serious tone, I felt my heart sink, the gnawing fear in my heart that he was going to friend-zone me shot up to lodge my heart in my throat. I nodded.
Sitting in his car we began slowly the heavy subject of the future of us. "Given the circumstances, I'd like to see you in person once more before we consider becoming official." I was stunned! And I conveyed to him that I had had a nightmare that week of him friend-zoning me, it was a serious nightmare the kind which you can't alter and when waking up find yourself in a cold sweat. I had never experienced anything like it. the nearest being at the height of the Everdyore scare while staying up until 3am reading Dracula and sleeping with the window open at my roommate's insistence.
Brian confessed he had a similar dream that week and had been a nervous wreck the whole day. We laughed and agreed that we should go out once more. I had strongly hinted that I wanted him to ask my dad for permission to date me.
The next week my family was in town for my graduation. Somehow I had actually managed to fulfill my undergrad requirements even after the fire. My mother then suggested that I invite Brian to enjoy shabbat dinner with us. Little did I know as I nervously invited him that this was the invitation he had been waiting for. How was he going to ask permission from my dad if he didn't get the chance to talk with him?
Talk to him he did. As my parents, Brian, and I walked on the river walk, one of my favorite elements of life in Chicago, he asked my dad if he could ask him a question. this was apparently an anticipated subject to everyone present except myself. I was keeping my heart in check, limiting my acceptance of perception concerning his feelings for me. Too many times I had read into a man's actions, now I was startled to find him and my father walking off ahead as my mom smiled at me knowingly.
As we followed, my heart was pounding. Thoughts stormed my mind, Brian really likes me, he is really talking to my dad, he really came to celebrate Shabbat with us, this is not a dream. They shook hands and then dad called him back, they prayed together, Brian leading. Then Brian and I were left to ourselves. I took his arm, he asked me if I would like to date him officially, suddenly I had a boychik, a sweetheart, a boyfriend, my first, my only boyfriend.
By the time I came to visit his family a week or so later to have dinner with his parents, both of our families were coming to understand that we had found the "one" or rather that G-d had brought us into the very season we both needed to be in to establish our marriage. We rarely flirted, instead we built our relationship on friendship in commitment to honesty in the face of fear.
We breached the hard subjects, we were vulnerable, the conflicts we had we sorted out before sleeping on them. Eventually as my job commitment wore down and his family came to love me I spent most days of the week living with his parents and sisters in their guest room. Sometime in early July we talked about getting married, by August our families were planning an October wedding, in September we were engaged, and on October 12th we were married in an historic mansion.
Exactly six months after we met, Brian stomped on the glass, our old lives being obliterated with it and with the covenant we signed. All the experience we had gained from heart break and patience, struggles and final surrender of our hearts to the direction of G-d, had lead us to the peaceful and easy road to the altar. Conflicts had happened, but we used them to seek to understand one another and to improve our love rather than wound it.
As we turned under the cover of the tallis, to face our friends and family who gathered to witness our union, my heart was fluttering. Pronounced as husband and wife I turned my face to my husband and he greeted me with a kiss. My first kiss. How sweet that kiss was, so worth the wait. Worth the defiance of my great-grandmother's suggestion to kiss before I turned 16. A kiss that defied pressure and compromise. A kiss that was encouraged by my own parents' example, by fairytales, and a determined little girl deciding that it was a gift that could have no match in value with anything other than a solemn covenant.
Reader, I married my best friend. I feel as though I have always known him, that we have always been friends. I am encouraged by him to continue this pursuit of the Pilgrim's Ingress. Not just in writing on this blog but what this blog's name stands for, the Pilgrim (me) walking in the way I am called, the path G-d is leading and preparing. My husband encourages me toward righteousness.
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