True love

Last week Miguel and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. Well, we didn’t celebrate it so much as acknowledge it. One thing I hadn’t considered when we got married on the 4th of the July is that the 4th is a family holiday, and any celebrating would be done on another day. I don’t regret it though, it actually takes a lot of pressure off of making the day special because fireworks are guaranteed.

We weren’t supposed to be married on the 4th of July. The original plan was for the Sunday before Labor Day. But then Miguel found out that a show that he had done a workshop of called, “The Untitled Punk Rock Musical” was going to be doing an out of town/pre-Broadway run in Berkley, California that fall.

Director Michael Mayer had called Miguel and said something like, “I hear fall weddings are really nice in San Francisco…”. To which Miguel responded by texting me (TEXING ME?!) that we needed to change the date of our wedding. That show became American Idiot and our wedding date became two months earlier. While I long ago forgave Miguel for texting me about moving our wedding, I will never let him forget it.

Perhaps, around this time, we also should have taken stronger note that life does not always go the way we plan…

I was 27 when we got married, Miguel was 32. In working on the next book, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about my 20’s. Reading old journals (so embarrassing) and looking through scrapbooks (good lord I had a lot of free time). I’ve been trying to piece together who I was, what was important to me, and the ways I’ve grown or changed.

I’m not sure whether I’ve been more surprised about how I’ve edited my memories: the emotional transition between my college relationship and Miguel was much rockier than I remembered. Or how certain anxieties have always been a part of me: am I doing enough? Trying hard enough? Being kind enough? Smart enough?

Before, when I thought of 20-something Kelly, she felt so naïve: a young woman enjoying New York City with more stars in her eyes than worries in her heart. I’d only been 23 when I met Miguel – a baby! I didn’t even have a fully formed frontal lobe at that point! How had I been able to determine over the next few years that Miguel was the person to spend my life with? I mean, I wasn’t wrong. So, had I just been lucky?

Ah, there’s that word. The word I’m wrestling with in writing book two: lucky.

The thing is, I knew that Miguel felt right because I had experienced how wrong something could be. I only had one long-term relationship prior to meeting Miguel, and it had been wracked by insecurity, jealousy, and co-dependence. I’d tried making myself small (in more ways than one) to make it work and I (finally) accepted that I am not made me to be small.

Still, the planner in me, had mapped out my future with this boy and when it fell apart, I found it difficult to trust my heart again. My journal entries during the early days of my relationship with Miguel are filled with fear and trepidation. I tried to resist falling in love with him.

Thankfully I failed.

Last week I asked Miguel when he knew that what we had was special. He told me it was fairly early on, but that he also had several more serious relationships than me and knew what the beginnings of love, the potential for love, felt like. He also knew that heartbreak was recoverable in a way I was still learning.

I don’t believe in soul mates: that there is only one person in the world for each of us. I believe love occurs as a result of opportunity and energy. And both must stay in alignment, even if it is a shifting alignment, for the love to maintain or grow.

I do, however, believe in true love. Again, not the singular, romantic love relegated to mythical soul mates. But an honest and healthy love, built on trust and dreams, mutual support and sacrifice. In my definition, true love can be romantic but doesn’t have to be, it can also be felt between siblings or friends. True love is what happens when people are able to be their full selves with each other, when they bring out the best in each other, and want to be their best selves for their person.

Fifteen years of marriage later, and I’m realizing that maybe I didn’t give 20-something Kelly enough credit. She may have been initially cautious, but she knew not to let a good thing pass her by out of fear. Whether luck had anything to do with it or not – I don’t know. But our opportunities and energies aligned, and for that I am eternally grateful.

P.S. I am so sorry, (not sorry) if you now have the marriage scene from Princess Bride stuck in your head… “Wuv, twue wuv…”

#TheLuckiest

Photo ID: A close up of Miguel with short hair (age 29), Kelly (age 24) is smiling at the camera over his shoulder. Her arm is around him.