Jumping All In

If this photo doesn’t show my personality to its core, I don’t know what does. No turning back. Full send. If I’m doing something, I’m not tiptoeing my way through it. It’s a full jump, all in. That has proved to be more of a blessing than a curse throughout my life but it’s had it downsides, too. When I’m done with something, or someone, I’m done in just as fully of a way. You’ll see more of that in other posts to come. But for now, let’s talk about this.

You only get married for the second time once, right? So why not make it spectacular? And oh, my gosh. It was more than spectacular. Everything about that day was pure magic. I’d do it the same way a thousand times over and over again. Nothing about Kris and I was typical. We met at work. We were both going through divorces and started out as friends swapping stories and venting about how our marriages made us feel. “What were the issues in your marriage?” “What does your ideal relationship look like?” “What kind of things make you feel prioritized by your significant other?” The more we talked, the more we connected. We both had a lot of similar feelings and similar struggles in our first marriages. We both wanted a lot of the same things to be different in a future relationship. What we didn’t realize at the time was that we’d actually end up being those things for each other.

We started dating at it was FIRE. Feelings that I had never had in my 18-year marriage nor had he in his 30-year marriage. We talked about everything. We traveled. We met each other’s families and friends. We adventured and went places together that neither of us had ever been. I wanted to see him in every possible light before jumping (literally) into a committed, longterm relationship or marriage. I was a single mom of four kids ages five to sixteen and he was an empty nester with three adult children that were already married themselves and he had grandkids. He’s 19 years older than me. What a wild thing. I was so insecure about asking him to jump back into the possibility of raising kids again. What would that look like? Would he love my kids and willingly step into being a stepdad? Would he resent them for limiting his freedom? What would my role be with his adult kids and grandkids? I didn’t want to be in a stepmom role with them but I knew that I wanted to add to the village that loved them and help support them through life, but I had know idea whether or not that would be accepted or not.

As we got more serious and decided to get married, I wanted to elope. No kids. No parents. No friends. Just us. I didn’t want to be distracted by anyone else. I wanted to be one hundred percent focused on each other and that’s exactly what we did. It was honestly the most magical day of my life. We took stunning photos in Snow Canyon and then got married on the water at sunset. Just the guy who married us and the photographers capturing it. We tied twine around each other’s fingers. We jumped in the water after saying “I Do.” We danced on the swim deck of the boat. He drove the boat and I surfed in my wedding dress. The photographers signed as witnesses, we drove away from the lake as husband and wife, and I still get goosebumps every time I think about that day.

Jumping in that water after saying our vows was the biggest metaphor for what our life is together. Anything we do, it’s fully-committed or not at all. But that came after a big transition. For me? I could make that shift instantly. For him? For his kids? For my kids? It was harder. I naively expected everyone else to jump fully-in to this new life together like I did, without hesitation, and when that didn’t happen, it brought up a lot of feelings for me. I suddenly found myself so madly in love and at the same time, having high expectations that weren’t all being delivered on. I wanted all of us to just be added together in this giant blender and whipped into the most incredible smoothie of a blended family from the beginning. I hosted family dinners, started babysitting grandkids, curating family experiences together, and it just wasn’t received by everyone like I wanted it to be.

I remember being two years in and Kris telling me that a friend of his told him “it takes about seven years to blend a family.” SEVEN YEARS?!?!? Absolutely not. That’s absolute bullshit. Could you imagine meeting a co-worker, a friend of a friend, whoever, and telling them “maybe we’ll be friends in seven years?” Or in-laws? “Welcome to the family, we’ll see if we like you in seven years.” What nonsense. It’s a decision. You decide you’re going to be friends and you start connecting with each other. Your son or daughter gets married and you welcome that new person that is important to them into your family. That’s what love looks like. That’s what human connection looks like. That’s what building a village of people around you looks like. Do you know how devastating it would be for society if that seven-year timing was true? Good, Lord, please let nothing catastrophic happen to any of us in the next seven years so that we can have the chance of becoming a family that loves each other and feels connected. What ridiculousness. I just don’t believe that has to be the case. You can decide to let people into our life. You can wrap your head around the idea of the happily-ever-after story looking differently than the one we wrote in our heads growing up. And better yet? You can be happy that your mother or father is happier now and in a loving relationship with someone that treats them the way they deserve to be treated. Why would you want them to be miserable in a loveless marriage just because you want your parents to stay together? Would you want that for yourself? Or would you want to spend the second half of your life being loved so completely that you loved life and loved waking up to the person next to you everyday? My guess is that if you paused for a moment and thought about it, you’d choose love.

I love this man so much. More than I could’ve ever imagined loving someone. It’s different than I expected it to be. It’s deeper than I thought it could be. It’s real. It’s feral. It’s visceral. I’m a much better wife the second time around. Is he a better husband? Absolutely. But I’m also better. I’ve made conscious choices for this time to be different. For it to be prioritized. To create the intensely intimate and fulfilling marriage that I want. And I’m so grateful for the chance to do that. It doesn’t come without challenges, but I am here for all of it.