Falling into Real

This weekend, I will meet his family.

And he will meet mine.

This is new to me. I am an old lady (41!), and I have never wanted someone who wanted me the same way, at the same time.

This is not new to him. He has been down the "meeting family" road before.

I have always been alone. I have lived a certain kind of life, an alone life. I am the one who has been with me through all of it. I have many beautiful friends and family that have been in my life, loved me good and hard for years. But they go home at the end of the day. It has been an alone life.

I am of a certain type of woman; Miss Independence. I have many comrades who are the same.

It is strange to think of leaving their company, of beginning to live another kind of life entirely.

I feel apologetic.

I know how many friends I lost to marriage. Each wedding was like a little funeral. Only some friends came back to me once the initial haze of marital bliss was over to still be my friend. Only some still found me valuable; others had no use for me; never came back to me.

As I grow into the idea of leaving behind my alone kind of life, I worry that I will lose all my friends as I was lost as a friend. Illogical, because I am aware. I can make choices for friendship.

But he will take up time, his boys will take up time. I will be like a sidecar on a family that was already there and functioning long before I arrived.

And I so want my time taken up. He is amazing. He is comfort, love, sustenance.

What do I still want to do as a singleton that I have not had already? I got every degree I wanted. I traveled continents. I helped start a school. Who gets 40 years of selfish freedom and then gets to trade that on the chance of marital bliss to the best man she ever met? Who gets to be a childless grandma?

But it still is a hard work, a daunting task, to trade in one kind of life for one altogether different.

So although Miss Independence drags her feet and fears, another part of me knows.

It's already too late.

He has changed me.

He has raised my expectation of what is possible. My idea of love possible in this life is widening, deepening. To a beautiful landscape I thought was already assembled, he is adding hue, texture, and depth.

He has given me part of his heart, and a little more, and a little more...

If he were to be gone from my life, it would leave a gaping hole. It's too late. I am changed, and although I am scared to go forward, going back is also unimaginable.

After this weekend, after we meet families, after I road trip with the boys...

It will be much more real.

It will be more nestled in community, in family.

It will be larger than us.

It always was, but I will have faces, conversations, laughs, relationships to add to the mosaic.

This weekend, I will meet his family.

And he will meet mine.