Sometimes friends ask me for relationship advice. The truth is that I never really know what to say.
Chances are if you know me even a little bit, then you know my husband, Steven, and I have been together for almost nine years.
If you don’t know me (Wait, who am I kidding? Does anyone but my mom or mother-in-law read this blog? Haha), then here’s some background: I met Steven in high school choir when I was 14 and he was 15. We’ve been together ever since and got married last October.
So friends sometimes ask me how we have made it work for so long. Sometimes friends ask me what they should do in their love lives. Should I text him? What should I say? When should I introduce him to my family? What should I wear on our date?
I’m never sure what to say. I don’t consider myself any kind of relationship expert. In fact, you could even say that I just got lucky. That I just happened to meet “the one” at a young age. Lucky me, eh?
Maybe there is some truth to that. Maybe it was fate in action. But loving someone for nine years isn’t just a result of having met at the right time. It’s the result of hard work, commitment, and choosing love over and over again.
“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” ~Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
The last couple weeks are kind of a blur.
I had several different topics I wanted to dive into. Some of them were timely, and I was hoping to write about them while they were still relevant…
Christmas, the incredibly frustrating debate in Washington over payroll tax cuts, ringing in 2012, a couple segments I saw on PBS Newshour that I thought were interesting….
But then my best friend’s dad died. And everything just kind of stopped.
When I say that Lindsey Jenkins is my best friend, most people can probably relate. Haven’t we all had a best friend at some point in our lives? Maybe even some of us have had more than one. For some people, a best friend might change often, from month to month or year to year. I’ve probably described other people in my life as best friends, but the truth is that no one has ever been a better friend than Lindsey.
There’s something about growing up with someone, about going through all the trials and tribulations that come with being a kid, pre-teen, teen, and then young adult. There’s something irreplacable and indescribably valuable about what I have with Lindsey, and it’s something I share with no one else in my life but her.