2 years

I fell into love like a lanky teenager grows into their limbs. That's a weird analogy, right? But it fits me just right.

I always expected real love to be like the movies - that's how I learned about it all, after all. And books, of course! I expected that if you found the right person, everything would just neatly and cleanly fall into place, and happiness really would be ever after. Love has never been like that for me, though. I've loved twice, maybe three times, and with both - or all three - of those men, it has been turbulent, rocky, kind of psychotic feeling in its intensity. I'm stubborn and independent, but I also want to be comforted, validated, and doted on. But as soon as the men I have loved do those things - and oh, those first two loves! They comforted, validated, doted to the max! As soon as they did those things I thought I needed, so desperately wanted, I kicked and punched and fought and pulled away. Then when I pushed them away, I ran back. I was emotionally all over the place.

I'll never forget the first time I had one of those moments with Zan. We'd been dating a short time - we were in that uncomfortable transition between dating and becoming a real thing - you remember that spot? It was somewhere around noon, and I hadn't eaten. He notoriously doesn't keep breakfast food in his house, and I am a person who needs every. single. meal. I have low blood sugar, and I am a beast if I don't eat. I was upset at him for not thinking of me and stocking his kitchen, but I was passive aggressive about it. Instead of telling him, I gave him the cold shoulder, mean looks, and eventually picked a full-on fight. We were driving somewhere, and I demanded he turn the car right back around because I was going home, dammit! He turned the car around without another word, parked on the street in front of his building, and I stormed out. Without a purpose or a mission because where was I going? And of course I wanted to go back.

He yelled after me, "I'm not coming after you. I won't do this."

And you know what? For the first time ever in a relationship, I walked back, swallowed my pride, apologized, and told him what was up with me.

Let me tell you, it took about a billion of those types of incidents for me to get it through my thick skull that walking away is not the answer. (And, okay, sometimes it is still my knee-jerk reaction. But hey, working on it!)

That was the moment, I think, when I knew this was for real, and I had found the kind of man that can handle me. Yep, not the "dream" man or the perfect man or the one, as so many people say. But a man that I respect to my very core, a man who knows not to indulge when I'm overreacting but absolutely indulges me when I need to cry something out, talk something out, sleep something off, or simply hug it out. A man who has my back. A man who is so right for me.

Relationships are so hard. My mom always said that as I grew up. That they're "hard work." Do you know... that sounded so dumb to me. Love is bliss! Love is fun and exciting and new feelings, and love is perfection, I thought. Surely, she didn't know what she was talking about. But like most things in life, mom is alright right.

Maybe we were both right. Love is bliss, and love is exhilarating and often sucks the very breath from my lungs, but relationships? Now they are hard work.

I have to work at becoming as emotionally independent as I am physically.

We have to work at communicating. No, seriously, we are the two most stubborn people on the face of the planet, and so we fight. We really do. Straight up yelling at each other kind of fights. It happens! Over the dumbest things, too, you don't even know. We're both so fiercely stubborn that we both have to really work on learning when to back down and let the small things go. That, I tell you, is some of the hardest work I've ever done.

I have to work at letting go of my preconceived notions about relationships. This relationship thing isn't what it looks like in romantic novels or '90s Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock movies. Real life relationships are sometimes boring. Sometimes we find ourselves sitting on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, together, absolutely bored out of our minds. Okay, that's mostly me. He's pretty content doing nothing. Real life relationships don't end with Zan climbing a fire escape to bring me a dozen roses and profess his undying love for me, all the while facing his fear of heights, after a big fight. It's pretty okay with me if we both just say "I'm sorry" and talk about how to communicate better next time. But sometimes he also brings flowers, and that's pretty great, too. And he has faced his fear of heights for me more than a few times - remember the ledge hike in Ecuador? So maybe he really is my Prince Charming, after all.

I have to work at loving him. Oh! The just being enamored of him and fighting the smile that wants to play on my lips when he looks particularly cute in the middle of an argument -that is easy. But the part where I am intentional about making room in our shared lives for the things he wants to do (instead of just hike, hike, hike like I want to!), that is work. And being intentional about making him feel loved in the ways that make him feel the most loved, that takes thought and effort. That's the kind of work that is most special to me. It's my favorite.

So anyway. To get back to my original point - about love being like fitting into awkwardly lanky limbs - that's what this relationship has been like for me. It has been slow and steady. I started out unsure and always always always questioning. Always doubting. I never knew I had such a Doubting Thomas in me, but it's true. I do. Every time he got too close in the beginning and saw me a little more raw, a little more open and honest and imperfect, I pulled away. I was uncomfortable with real love and even more uncomfortable with a real relationship.

But two years in, today, I remember back to the night he left a March madness basketball game to come all the way to H Street NE to meet me for just a single drink in a bar that now no longer exists.

And as I think back to that night, when he said goodbye to me on the sidewalk with a simple hug, nervousness and questions and uncertainty written all over both of our faces, I think that I've grown into this thing. I fit perfectly into our relationship. We fit perfectly.

Happy two years, Zander.