Mon, April 26, 2010

I have an announcement to make today and I have been struggling with the right way to make it because it doesn't really seem like a bloggable sort of thing, but on the other hand I'm not quite enough of a girl to call a bunch of people and squeal about it either. (Well, I'm not that type of girl any more.)

As of April 13 (a week ago last Tuesday), MaryBeth and I are engaged to be married. I went about the proposal in an awkward, spontaneous sort of way, and afterward – as glorious as it was – I felt bad that I hadn't talked to her parents first, so we stayed mum until we could find a good time to talk to them in person about it, which was yesterday.

Today, I've been searching for the right way to break the news on onebee, where it really should be broken in some form or another – and my thoughts kept drifting to this post: Mrs. Onebee. The beginning of our relationship was announced as a jaunty retort in its comments section, because she is, after all, Mrs. Onebee.

I finally just reread the entire piece, and of course it's pretty hard to read. Even as I wrote it, I imagined I'd end up regretting a lot of it. (Also, as I wrote it, I had to tone down a lot of the anger and self-pity.) Sure, there are regrets in life; we all have them. But two years have certainly made a lot of difference. So the inevitable conclusion finally dawned on me, what the Mrs. Onebee post needs is the good ol' fashioned FJM treatment.

(Don't be surprised if the following ends up being my vows. Or something equally self-obsesssed and long-winded. RSVP early for good seats!)

I turn 30 today, which is something I've been dreading since I turned 25, which I dreaded from the day I turned 21 which I dreaded beginning around the time I arrived at college and realized I would be expected to run my own life and would be solely accountable for any goals left unachieved.

Wow, I should probably check around online – someone may have given this obnoxious bitchfest a well-deserved FJM'ing already. (However, one thing to note, this was before Obama – now we have someone else to hold accountable for any unachieved goals.)

In high school, the biggest choice I had to make was which electives to take, and if I picked wrong, the longest it would haunt me is five months.

I feel this overlooks some other fairly serious choices and, frankly, betrays a pretty serious misdirected focus during my high school years. Electives? That's what I was thinking about? I think if the American Pie movies 1 through 8 have taught us anything, it's that classes are the last thing we should be thinking about during class. A lot of choices in high school resulted in me not getting STDs or a skeezy reputation. Not many of those choices were made by me, but still...

[As a grown-up,] I opted for the path that had served me well in the past: keep moving forward and assume things will work out. Eventually [...] I'd meet the woman I was meant to be with. At some point, I'd discover what my life's purpose would be.

I think these go hand in hand to some extent, and – what do you know? – they worked out. Operating with a modicum of faith (or even basic optimism) does pay off now and then. Probably worth keeping in mind.

Well, perhaps I still will. 30 is not that old, necessarily.

DO YOU REALLY THINK SO? God, what a schmuck.

But 30 does have certain restrictions. It's too late for young love. There will be no high school sweetheart for me. Anyone I meet now is going to be like me: thirtyish, with a job and a checking account and responsibilities – and habits too well established to change.

Ah, very interesting. Failed to account for a very integral element of the equation here, which is the element of personality types being attracted to one another. These things are all basically true, but we found each other because our habits and preferences aligned very nicely, and where they weren't aligned were in areas where we were flexible (okay, if I'm being honest here – where she was flexible).

No shared journey of self-discovery for us; we're already found, for better or worse. We just have to decide if we can live with each other. Spontaneous, carefree whimsy is out the fucking window.

Categorically false. I can't believe none of my readers called me out on this two years ago, but they were all probably reevaluating whether they even wanted to remain a) readers or b) friends of mine. (Thanks to those brave souls who stuck around!) I've discovered innumerable things about myself over the last year, and I can't speak for my fiancée, but I'm pretty sure she has, too. (At the very least, she's discovered whether or not she can live with me. Answer: barely.) And spontaneous, carefree whimsy has not been a day-to-day thing, it's true. If it had, life would probably become somewhat tiresome – like the John Michael Higgins character on Community. But it certainly laid the groundwork for our relationship, and continues to express itself in many little ways here and there. It was central to my proposal, which caught both of us so unprepared that I didn't even have a ring ready (to my eternal shame – a marriage proposal really should include a ring).

Ask anyone who knew me at 20 and they'll tell you I was obsessed with romance. [...] I fell in love at least a dozen times a day

I still do!

Okay, that's a little gooey, but a dozen times a month is a fair estimate. (And I want to be clear, I'm talking about falling in love with MaryBeth here...)

Ten years ago, a cute girl on the street would fill me with daydreams of holding hands or snuggling in front of a movie. Now, it's a rote inner monologue: That stuck-up bitch would never talk to me. Probably too stupid to carry a conversation anyway. I couldn't be with anyone who'd buy that purse. She probably has a boyfriend – or worse, a cat.

He hee! As much as I love that line (which is based in part on a true inner monologue about a purse, and also an actual woman I dated who had a cat and – it turned out – an ex who hadn't yet realized he was an ex), I think the point it makes is more about using your single time to learn about the person you're looking for. Rather than approaching the entire population of single people like 20-year-old Jameson ("I want to love someone; give me anyone."), which leads to constant disappointment because the law of averages says some aspects of personality will fail to match up, it's better to start figuring out what criteria are important.

I'm not saying you start writing off whole segments of people with hard-edged zero-tolerance policies, unless you know you're a neat freak and can't live with a guy who won't pick up his socks – that kind of thing. But it helps to get an idea of who you're compatible with and who you aren't, rather than swooning over everyone and then it's their fault when they don't live up to the ideal you envisioned when you saw them for ten seconds from 30 yards away.

I guess what I'm saying is, it helps to be realistic. Is it surprising it took me 32 years to figure that out? Particularly as a skeptical pragmatist who champions science?

No more wondering about the future Mrs. Onebee – what will she be like, what will she like about me, what parts of myself will I have to hide from her.

I can't speak authoritatively about this part – it's possible I just got extremely lucky – but I haven't had to hide any of the things I thought I'd have to hide. And I thought I'd have to hide a lot – I just figured there were certain fantasies and thoughts that I would simply never get to think again. Definitely a lot of uncharitable opinions I'd need to keep to myself. But so far, not at all. Maybe when you really find the right person, you just match superbly well. Or maybe it's because I got so fantastically lucky.

I won't have to share my TiVo or defend any of my little idiosyncrasies.

Aside from the fact that we're still recording Glee ("for one more week"), this hasn't presented a problem either. She likes the shows I like, or she's discovered them through me (which is even more fun).

On the idiosyncrasy score, I think for a hopeless romantic I really gave "true love" the short shrift. I entered into the relationship doing my best impersonation of a serious adult, and laid out all my eccentricities with a hammer in hand, prepared to bludgeon them all into oblivion. I said, "I know that many things I became accustomed to as a single person will have to change now, so just say the word." She didn't even blink; she just said, "Why should they change?"

So my pants came back off. She just turned out to be perfect!

Along the way, I have also learned a great deal about the realities of a relationship: that every day may not live up to the romantic fantasy you dreamed of, but it will more than make up for that with stability and support. It is no coincidence that within six months of our meeting, I was enrolled in animation school – something I'd often considered, but never begun. It's been inspiring and creatively stimulating, but it has also included some of the most difficult challenges I've ever faced, and I know I would not have made it this far without her support and encouragement.

So, thank you, MaryBeth, for all of this and more. You've definitely rescued my perspective on love and romance, and I'm so excited about our wondrous life together for the next few decades.

Then we hit 70, and murder-suicide pact, right?

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