It’s….Different.

A while ago, I gave the details of my engagement.  In my discussion of that event (!!!), I mentioned that being engaged is different than I thought.  I’d like to try today to explain what I mean by that.

First, a bit of a disclaimer.  It might sound to you like I’m not happy when I write this.  If you get that message, please read this again–that’s not what I’m trying to say at all.  Please don’t read into this.  But this is different than I imagined.

The most amazing thing about being engaged is that it is exactly how you imagine it would be.  It is spectacular to have taken that step and stand on the precipice of the rest of your life with a person you are looking forward to spending the rest of your life with.  It’s incredible.  It’s envigorating, it’s wondering, and it puts everything else into focus.  The acknowledgement that you have found someone who you will love the rest of your life is a special thing.  So, no matter what else I say, understand that it is a good thing.

But there were some things I wasn’t prepared for that come along with this too.

The responsibility threshhold goes way, way up when you get engaged.  I felt it change the minute I put the ring on her finger.  I think in some way I knew that the responsibility level went up, but I didn’t realize how different it was until that moment.  It’s a fairly intense thing.  To take a vow to give your life to someone else and at the same moment to receive their’s in return brings with it (at least to me) a heavy burden of responsibility.  I had figured it would be a switch, but nothing like as big as it has actually been.  I think the problem here was that I didn’t think enough about this part.

I’ve spent the vast majority of the past 6 or so years living however I felt like it. (The way I handled that responsibility is well documented.)  In short, I lived for me, for the moment, unequivocally.  That all changed with the ring.  I felt it when I started shopping for the ring, when I bought the ring it was a cloud above my head.  As it is now, that change is the air I breathe.  The alternative title of the entry describing the engagement, I said something to effect that it was "the requiem for a selfish life."  That’s exactly true.  As I mentioned above, giving your life to someone and them giving you their’s brings with it the expressed responsibility of being at least as concerned for them as you are for yourself, if not more.  (With all likelihood, more concerned for the other person than yourself….think O. Henry’s "Gift of the Magi," here.) 

The choices I made to live in the moment for the past 6 years have all come home to roost.  The debt I’ve piled up, the emotional fall-out from the bad decisions, all of it, weighs on me now, because I know that Britt and I will have to deal with it.  When the wedding was just "out there" somewhere, it was just a thought which could be avoided.  Now it is a reality which must be dealt with.  I have student loan debt, and debt about 100 other ways.  I’m doing everything I can to get out of it as much as I can before the wedding, but I’m beginning to think it’s a challenge I won’t be able to get over until after we are married (and probably until we are both out of school…her undergrad, my Seminary).

You probably won’t want to hear this part, but there’s also a sort of panic that hit right after I proposed that I’d actually selected one woman out of all the possible women in the world, and was truly and honestly done looking forever.  Closing that book, while in one sense a relief, is in another sense sort of a panic-inducing sort of thing.  What’s funny about that, at least from my perspective, is that I made that choice 2 years ago, before Britt and I even started dating.  I was about 99.9% certain that if I couldn’t be with Britt, I didn’t want anyone.  But somehow, even after making that decision, I still found myself sort of freaking out that I couldn’t look anymore.  I don’t know how to explain it.  It’s a bizarre, confusing sort of thing.  Hear me well–I don’t want anyone else.  That’s what make the panic so confusing.  Most of the time (90% or so), I don’t even think about it at all.  When I do think about it, I usually don’t worry about it at all.  But that every once in a while, when that anxiety hits….yeah.  I don’t know how that makes sense, but I’m just trying to be honest here.

Most of all now, in terms of differences from what I expected, I see my faults more clearly than ever, and I worry pretty often that I’m going to let her down somehow. I’ve always tried to make sure that I do what is best for us, but now I see my faults better (especially as they relate to her), and how those faults could cause me to hurt her down the road.  To be quite frank, I’m scared to death I’m going to do something that will hurt her badly.  That’s a wrinkle I didn’t expect.  Somehow, I imagined that when you got engaged, those problems just sort of didn’t come up. I’m way less confident of me than I’ve ever been.  In this case, that might be a good thing, but it’s pretty darned uncomfortable.

And you know what’s funniest of all about all of this?  Somehow, even though these things seem significant on paper, when I’m with her,  none of it comes up.  I think that might be the biggest indicator of them all that things are different–even my own neurotic tendencies just sort of disappear when I’m with her–even I can’t screw this up.

Well, have a good Thanksgiving, for those of you who celebrate it.  I pray you’ll celebrate it with people you love and that it will be a restful and blessed time for all of you.