When are we going to get married?
This was something that my Fiancee and I would ask each other from time to time, especially on months that marked the changing of the seasons or on holidays that represented another year. Getting Married was always something that would happen in our minds. We had always planned it, but no matter what, there were always reasons not to get married this time.
“We’ll get married once we live on our own.”
That was our first excuse when we were still living with our parents. Both of us were late bloomers who had an apprehensive time spreading our wings and leaving our respective nests. When we first met, we would spend all of our time together, but we rarely had a place to ourselves. My parents had just recently moved into a new house, and my room must have been an office before that. The room had very sparse amenities crammed into it: a twin bed, a desk, a dresser, a three-shelf book stand, and that was it. The door also did not have a lock on it. It was evident that my parents were not planning on me spending much time there, and in retrospect, it could have been the last push to get me living on my own that I needed.
My Fiancee was living with her family. It was her mother and step-father, her two younger sisters, her much younger brother, and three misbehaved dogs that she loved very much. I had a dog as well. It was a sweet golden retriever that we called Honey. My parents gave her away to another family before we moved into the new house. My family never kept pets very long. Caring for animals was not a value instilled in us as kids, and when I met her slobbering, barking, excrement-producing dogs, I had little patience for them. I didn’t mind dogs, but I wasn’t a dog lover. My Fiancee is a dog lover. In fact, apart from a few slimy or scaling things, she is an animal lover. This would cause conflict every now and then. One of her dogs was a black lab with an adorable habit of urinating in different places in the house. A habit I still think that he does out of spite.
As time went on, I was spending more and more time over at her parents’ house. We would walk up to her room and shut the door, often not saying anything to anyone. At the time, we did this for some modicum of privacy, but now I look back, and I am ashamed of it. We rarely spent time with her family, and her family was close, unlike mine. I’m sure they must have seen me as a wedge in between her and the rest of them. Perhaps I was. There was one night in particular that I am thinking of. We had just arrived there at the house, and we were getting settled in her room. We had not yet closed the door when our favorite black lab ran up the stairs, hiked his leg, and peed on a corner of the bed.
The problem with living at your girlfriend’s parent’s house is that when you fight, and you will, are thoroughly outnumbered. You will immediately realize that you are in enemy territory, and your every movement is being watched. The person who seemed to always be up, no matter how late, was her mother. I never got the feeling that her mother liked me, and I still don’t. Even now, after 7 years of being with my Fiancee, I feel that I am treated as a stranger.
“We’ll get married once you get your degree.”
My Fiancee graduated with her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) while working semi full time. On the other hand, I couldn’t keep consistent employment and seemed to be taking forever deciding on what I wanted to do with my life. Through a special program set up for new nurses, my Fiancee could get financing to buy a house, so we decided to start looking for one. I was not a cosigner, I was not employed, I did not have a say in where we would live. I felt like a complete loser as we looked for houses with her family.
Meanwhile, I eventually decided to enroll in a private university’s computer science program. I found a job with an insurance agency that I would be fired from 5 months later for having no sales to speak of. I had a hard time figuring out my computer science classes, and I was failing one of them. I had no previous knowledge or skills with computers, and I had very little interest in learning about them apart from wanting to pass my classes and get my degree. Unfortunately, that did not end up being enough. I was a work-study for the university as I took my classes. I switched my major to Information Systems, and I had no idea what I would be doing when I graduated. I picked up a job working data entry for a national restaurant chain’s corporate office and continued diligently with my classes.
I finally graduated with my degree, ready to find the job that would start me on my new career in May of 2020. I have been searching for a new job while working the one I’ve had. It’s a contract job, with no promises or intentions of becoming permanent. So I once again found myself in limbo.
“We’ll get married once I find a permanent job.”
I had said this, over and over. I searched for a new job, I’m still searching for one. As the entire country was put into quarantine, we were all forced indoors. This did, however, have a positive effect on my fiancee and I. We began to lose weight and change our habits. I worked remotely, still applying to positions and receiving rejection after rejection. I began to give up hope that I would find a permanent job anytime soon. It was going on six years that we were together, we were staring at age 30 head on, and it was beginning to get to my Fiancee the most.
By thanksgiving, we saw our relatives who were impressed with our significant weight loss. I still didn’t have a new job, I was not proud of my degree, but I did feel good about losing the weight. My life seemed as uncertain as ever, but instead of my own future being unpredictable and suspended in uncertainty, everyone seemed to be in the same boat as me. Many family members had lost their jobs, their futures seemed as uncertain as mine. In the years I visited them on holidays, I self-consciously felt as though they were looking down on me from their apparent success. The economic impact of the pandemic leveled us all in my mind, where I saw no reason in waiting to be in their position since their position in life seemed no different from mine at that point. It wasn’t schadenfreude, I did feel sorry for them, but it did serve as a lesson for how uncertain things can be.
Black Friday was over, and it was Sunday night. I was stuck thinking about the passage of time yet again. With the passing of yet another Thanksgiving, there was the coming of yet another Christmas. To top it all off, another Monday, with all of its predictable banality. It made me realize that there will never be a good time to get married, but time will pass anyway. There was always an opportunity to do it, however. I decided that night to search for an engagement ring and finally ask her to marry me on Christmas Eve. When I showed her the ring that day, I couldn’t get the words out. I stood there stupidly, smiling. I was so nervous that she wouldn’t like the ring, since she has such particular taste. That, too, was something I had to overcome. She did like it, however, which I was greatly relieved to find out.
We are currently in the process of planning our wedding. We are spending all of our money. Yet, we don’t regret it. The reason is that time has taught us that there is never an ideal time to do anything, only opportunities to act. I learned to stop waiting to do what you need to and bear the consequences instead of mitigating them.
