So, I was getting through another July 3rd, and ay yi yi, Josh and I were in full-on crisis mode. All inessential spending had screeched to an immediate halt since he’d been laid off the week before. However, Josh’s resourcefulness was impressive, and he had an interview that very afternoon at a local university. Given the state of the economy, it seemed like a good idea to get out of the start-up world and into something a little more stable.

Much to my delight, Josh came home from the interview flying high. He wasn’t usually prone to giddiness, but he was so happy about the interview that he’d stopped on the way home to hit the Surdyk’s wine sale and pick up a couple of steaks. It was a little indulgent since he was technically unemployed, but hell, he was optimistic, and it was good to see. July 3rd was redeeming itself, and I couldn’t complain about an impromptu barbecue for two.

As Josh ran to the gas station for some propane, I took the opportunity to soak in the tub before dinner. It had been a stressful week, and I was so relieved that he might have a job lined up already. I put on the radio, slipped out of my work clothes, and eased myself into the warm water. I’ve always been a bath person. Sure, the shower is great on a quick-and-easy, day-to-day basis, but the bathtub is pure peace.

What happened next is a blur, but within five minutes of leaving the tub, I was standing at the front door, desperate for Josh to return. Everything was moving at an unearthly pace, and he couldn’t get back soon enough. A new emotion swirled through my body, and I was overcome with shock. Josh finally opened the door, and I looked up at him with wide eyes. “Honey,” I said, “we’re going to be parents.” Thanks to one champion sperm and an e.p.t., the 3rd of July made the list: Best Days Ever.

*****

Blog Housekeeping

Dear readers, here marks the end of the wonderful journey that has been my blogoir. I can’t thank you enough for your readership, your comments, and your support! This project has been the first draft of a full-length memoir, and I plan to begin working on the next draft (off-line) immediately. In approximately one week, I’ll be launching a new blog that will be written in the present tense. Stay tuned here for that announcement!

In the mean time, I need your advice. My intention is to write more about what I learned about love and marriage through this experience, and I don’t want to limit my audience to only those who have been through a divorce. There are much more universal themes at play here. So, what do YOU want to see in the book version of Divorced Before 30? Are there specific subjects or characters that you’d like to read more (or less) about? Please leave your suggestions in the comments below. Don’t be shy!

Again, thank you!

While Josh didn’t give me a green light, he bought a very nice gift for my birthday. I was the proud owner of my first digital camera. He was careful to buy one with just the right specs—he’s good at sorting through models and reading reviews. It was perfect, and we had an action-packed weekend to document.

On Friday night—my actual birthday—we went to dinner at 112 Eatery, the restaurant where we’d lingered late into the evening just hours before our first kiss. Several friends met us for dinner, and it was a laughter-filled evening of small plates and tall pours. And dessert–oh, the dessert! I couldn’t choose a favorite between the tres leches cake and the butterscotch budino.

Perhaps the free-flowing wine was partially to blame, but by the end of dinner, I was standing in the ladies’ room, cursing myself in the mirror as I fought back tears. It wasn’t just that I was, you know, getting older, though Lord knows, that was part of it. I was so tired of feeling emotionally vulnerable. I’d been through so much in the last two years—when did I get to relax and enjoy love?

I unloaded on Josh when we got home, and he surprised me. He went berserk, and I have to confess—I enjoyed it in a perverse sort of way. He could be so emotionally reserved that I often wondered what the hell was going on up there. Now I knew, and that was so much better than acting like everything was just fine. I have little regard for fine. Real life is a hot, stinking mess sometimes.

He insisted that all of my questions about marriage and babies were ruining the romance, ruining any element of surprise that he might be planning. But I didn’t care about surprises—I just wanted him to look me in the eyes and tell me, in-person, out loud, that he wanted me. I didn’t need an elaborate proposal or a fancy ring. The idea of marriage had lost its lustre for me somewhere back in Illinois. I wanted more than an idea. I wanted the action of marriage. The real-life highs and lows, and all the banal stuff in between. With him.

We kissed and made up, and I came to terms with the fact that he was going to do this his way. No emotional appeals on my part would make a difference. So I shut up and enjoyed the rest of the weekend. On Saturday, we went to the Twins-Red Sox game with my brothers and their significant others. It was all fun and games until the 2nd or 3rd inning when I dunked my shiny new camera, full immersion, into my beer. I’d only consumed about two ounces of beer, so I couldn’t blame intoxication. The camera was trashed, and there was nothing I could do but finish the beer and shake it off.

On Sunday morning—Mother’s Day—I hosted my whole family for a rather elaborate brunch. It was such a sweet day. I mean, aside from the mimosas, french toast, and fresh fruit, it was genuinely sweet. “Like a Normal Rockwell picture,” as my mom used to say. My younger brothers were all highly participatory in the family quality time. That hadn’t always been the case. But on this fine spring morning, the whole lot of us walked down to the park after brunch to let toddling Ethan play.

As I watched my brothers egging on my mom to try the kiddie zip line, I knew exactly what I’d been waiting for, fighting for. Back when I’d first realized that my marriage was going to fail, I think what crushed me the most was the loss of the would-be family that I’d constructed in my head. I mistakenly thought that by saying “I do,” all of that would fall into place. Sometimes, life is exactly not what you expect. Case in point: a granny—my mother—flying by on a zip line, hollering like a schoolgirl.

While I was cautiously optimistic that the end was in sight, I didn’t feel like I could take a full breath until I was sitting in my living room with a glass of wine, a good book, and my honey at my side. On some level, I was worried that it was all too good to be true—the house, the man, the stability. It was all so civilized—a far cry from the day I sped away from my ex-husband with little more than my dog and my purse.

I could see what I wanted on the horizon: a family, which would start with me, Josh, and Tucker, and would hopefully grow to include children in the not-so-distant future. But it was bigger than that, too. I hoped that our little clan would be closely tied to our own roots, and I was excited that Josh and I had started to get to know each others’ families better.

Josh and I were both the oldest of four. Between the two of us, we had six younger siblings, ranging in age from 21 to 29. Josh had two sisters—Jessie and Rachel—and a brother named Andy who was still in college. Jessie had a three-year-old son named Aidan, and Rachel had recently married Brian, a great guy who she’d met while living out west. What made the whole situation downright idyllic was the fact that our parents were all still married to each other. Jeez. And, every one of these people lived within a 45-minute drive of our new house. I could already envision the BBQs and birthday parties.

Josh had met my family during our first year in college, when I’d often invited friends home for Sunday dinner. He’d also spent a fair amount of time at my parents’ house during my recently-divorced-and-living-in-the-basement phase. Still, I was happy that he was able to come along on my family’s summer vacation right before we moved in together. We rented a big lake home in northern Minnesota—a house that would go down in family lore as “Weird Don’s” because the owner was a cranky old dude named Don.

If it was hard for my family to see me so quickly attached to another man after my divorce, they didn’t let on. All three of my brothers and my sister-in-law had stood up in my wedding, so I wondered if they’d felt a certain investment in my marriage, but it felt like they were solidly on my team. I think the general consensus was that my marriage had been a mistake. Josh was welcomed with open arms, and at Weird Don’s, he was even foolish enough to stay out around the campfire with my brothers after I went to bed. This is a sure recipe for a four-Advil hangover.

I didn’t have a chance to vacation with Josh’s family that summer, but I did attend the employee appreciation picnic for the family business. I hadn’t been around his family much yet, so it was a good opportunity to talk to his parents and siblings over BBQ and cold brews. Josh’s dad, Larry, had started his own company several years before, and Rachel and Jessie both worked for him. Josh’s mom, Rose, did a lot to help make the company a great place to work—including providing home-baked goodies every week.

One of the many wonderful things about getting to know Rose was that she asked a lot of questions. She had a good deal of practice, as several of her children—including my boyfriend—were on the quiet side. At the picnic, Rose and Alex, Andy’s girlfriend from college, asked me about my divorce. What a relief! I’d been pretty sure that Josh had mentioned it to his mom, but I’d been wondering whether the rest of the family knew that I’d been married before. I don’t know why, but it really mattered to me. Something about authenticity.

It seemed like Josh and I would fit in nicely with each others’ families, but I knew it would take time to feel entirely comfortable. I couldn’t help but wonder, “At what point are you really part of your significant other’s family?” Did it take a ring? Or was cohabitation sufficient? Having already gained and lost in-laws, I really hoped that this would turn out differently. Still, there was always a risk. But since I was willing to put my heart on the line again for Josh, I figured that I could sure as hell go ahead and love his family.

So, one night as we were curled up in bed, I broached the subject again. I shared my fears, my instincts, and what I wanted out of life. I explained how women’s fertility starts to decline at a ridiculously young age. Sure—many women successfully get pregnant in their late 30s and beyond, but it can become increasingly difficult, and given my own health history, I didn’t want to take any chances. And on a personal level, I’d always wanted to be a young mom. There’s nothing wrong with having kids later in life—or not having them at all, for that matter—but that’s not what I wanted.

I apologized for putting this on him so soon, but I had to get it out in the open before moving in together. Josh is a very even-keeled, practical person, so he expressed concern about wanting to be in a better place financially. But. Deep breath. He wasn’t opposed to trying to get pregnant a little sooner if it was that important to me. We didn’t talk specifically about timing, but we agreed to toss out the idea that we had to wait three to five years. Neither of us felt particularly attached to social convention.

So that was a huge relief. Marriage was the furthest thing from my mind—I just wanted to build a life with Josh and keep working on becoming the best version of me that I could be. Once we were on the same page, we revved up our house-hunting engines. By the end of July, we had an offer accepted on a cute little starter home just a few minutes from downtown Minneapolis.

We didn’t know how it had happened, but we were suddenly bound for the ‘burbs. And we were excited about it. Tucker would have his own yard, and Josh and I would start our life together, twelve years after we first became friends as first-year college students in Burton Hall.

In therapy, I got to babble on about all the junk that had been weighing me down—guilt about my divorce, frustration about my career, and anxiety about my biological clock. More and more, I realized how much I’d been worrying about my ability to have kids. There were many things in life that I couldn’t control, but I realized that I could dig a little deeper into my fertility issues. I didn’t want to wait until I was ready to have kids to find out what challenges I might face.

So, proactive one that I am, I went to see a specialist at the university. She checked my hormone levels and ordered an ovarian ultrasound to follow up on the polycystic ovary syndrome diagnosis I’d been given back in Illinois. Everything came back normal, which was a relief, but I still didn’t know why I couldn’t have a cycle on my own. Since my divorce, I’d gone back on the pill anyway, but still.

All of this fertility business got me thinking—it might be a good idea to see exactly where my boyfriend stood on the whole baby-making issue before we bought a house together. You know, since I was already envisioning us with a passel of tots—beanpoles, no doubt. Little scientists or writers, basketball players or runners, or maybe kids who would blaze their own trails and teach us new things.

The opportunity to talk arose one sticky July evening as Josh and I walked Tucker on a loop through my neighborhood, mostly as a reprieve from my stuffy apartment. What began as a casual stroll turned into a rather epic conversation.

“Honey?” I started. “I need to ask you something before we buy a place together.” Does anything strike fear in a man’s heart more than a Big Talk? But I forged ahead. “You want to have kids, right?” I knew he wanted to have kids—I’d seen his list of baby names, for God’s sake. He nodded. “MmmHmm.”

That’s how the conversation started, but if he read between the lines—and I’m sure that he did—it went a little deeper. I wasn’t just asking, after all, if he wanted to have kids in general. I was asking if he wanted to have them with me, the woman with whom he hoped to own a house soon.

I proceeded with caution, “Well, when, exactly, do you see that happening?” He had to think about that for a while, but eventually, he said, “I don’t know—maybe three to five years?” Three to five years. A perfectly reasonable timeframe for a thirty-year-old guy who’d been dating someone for eight months. So why did I feel so damn disappointed?

In addition to working toward the three goals, I’d also managed to move out of my parents’ basement. Living there had been instrumental to my healing, but moving out had given me proof that the healing had indeed occurred. My time in the basement had definitely served its purpose. On top of the psychological rewards, I’d paid off about 75% of the debt from my marriage, and symbolically, that meant detaching myself even further from my former life.

Getting out of debt meant that I could really move forward, and Josh and I had been talking about buying a place together. Yes, that’s right. I was recently divorced and was seriously contemplating buying a place with my boyfriend of six months. It sounds crazy, but it just felt right.

My birthday dinner was a delightful mix of the important people in my life: Josh, my parents, some of the Picnic Leaguers, my running buddies, my roommate, and even one my brothers. It felt like the perfect day, and the birthday love continued. A couple weeks later, Josh gave me a belated gift that he hadn’t had time to finish. It was a beautiful pencil drawing that he’d titled “Besar,” which means “to kiss” in Spanish.

It was me and Josh—softly sketched organic shapes—sweetly intertwined. It was hard to tell where one body ended and another began, and that was perfect, because that’s exactly how I felt when we were together. He wrote a beautiful card that explained the drawing—words that expressed things I already knew, but which felt wonderful to have affirmed. He wrote of the comfort he felt with me and how happy I made him, and my heart felt all gooey when I read it. I knew what painstaking care he took with his drawings, most of which were incredible likenesses of photographs that inspired him. This was a much more abstract piece, and I loved that he had taken a risk on it.

Maybe I was a complete loon to be contemplating a commitment as large as a shared mortgage so soon after my divorce. I probably was. But I had a good feeling about my thirties, and I thought it was high time that I started trusting my gut. After all, the key to happiness is not chasing after what you’re supposed to want. It’s realizing what you do want and making it your own.

You can look to your family, your friends, and your religion for guidance, but in the end, you also need to reach into the wisdom located between your own ears and within your own chest. Now, I don’t know much about gnome mythology, but if I had to guess, I’d posit that the happiest gnomes trust their tubby little guts. So as I entered my thirties, I gave myself permission—orders, even—to do the same.

The reception was held at a farm operated by the regional park district. There was a big red barn for the food and dancing, and all sorts of space for kids to play and explore. Josh’s whole family had been invited, and we took his 3-year old nephew, Aidan, to visit the barnyard animals. You just don’t see many chickens at weddings these days. The chicken dance, maybe.

The Picnic League crew had a special gift made for Chris and Corri: t-shirts for the whole group that said “Minnesota Picnic League.” Josh had drawn some rowdy looking ants to serve as mascots of sorts. Have I mentioned that he’s a really good artist? We all put on our shirts and posed for a group photo outside the barn.

Chris and Corri had asked Keith and Karen, who had been in the St. Olaf choir back in their college days, to sing at the reception. They did an amazing rendition of Ben Folds’ “The Luckiest,” and the opening lines in particular resonated with me: “I don’t get many things right the first time / In fact, I am told that a lot / Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls / Brought me here.” As I sat in a cheer-filled barn with my new love and his wonderful friends and family, I thought, “Yes.”

What the bride and groom had not requested was a second song performed by the rest of us. We took our places on the stage as Karen played the opening notes on the keyboard, and the wedding guests—and the bride and groom, to be sure—held their breath as they waited to see what in God’s name we were about to do. When Keith busted out with the first solo, it all became clear. We sang “When I’m With You,” by Sheriff, at the top of our lungs. Yes. Yes, we did, and my rather soft-spoken boyfriend even took the lead on the second verse. On the refrain, we really rocked it out: “BABY, oh I get chills when I’m with you / Baby, my world stands still when I’m with you / When I’m with you.”

And you know what? It didn’t matter that we couldn’t sing for shit. It was heart-felt and bold, and Chris and Corri beamed. It takes a unique group of friends to serenade the bride and groom with the sweet sounds of an ’80s monster ballad, and I was proud to be one of them. I no longer felt the self-consciousness I’d experienced with Josh’s friends that winter. Yes, I felt like I belonged, and I had an ant t-shirt to prove it.

*****

How About You?

What’s your favorite monster ballad, or ’80s song in general? Or love song, for that matter?

Josh was standing up for Chris, so we were invited to attend the ceremony, which was being held at the couple’s favorite restaurant in a small town near Stillwater. Josh and I shared their love of all things food, and as I’d gotten to know them better over the past few months, I’d had a blast joining them for elaborate cooking “playdates” and hole-in-the-wall outings involving cheese-filled burgers.

On Thursday, Chris decided to ride with us to the ceremony, and I ended up having a drink with him at my apartment while we waited for Josh. It’s a rare treat to spend time with someone on their wedding day. Nothing could be more monumental than the day you say “I do,” and yet Chris was calmly sipping wine in my living room just a couple hours before the ceremony. We somehow got to talking about my marriage, which was actually a huge relief.

It was the first time I’d talked about my divorce with any of Josh’s friends, and as ugly as it seemed to me, it felt good to share it. We talked about marriage in general—a natural topic, given the occasion—and from where I sat, he and Corri seemed like a natural fit. I told him that the appeal of marriage wasn’t ruined on me entirely, but I did have a lot of questions about what it all meant—the promises, the trust, the inherent risk.

Josh and I delivered the groom on time, and he exchanged vows with lovely Corri in a quiet garden behind the restaurant. The twenty or so wedding guests joined the happy couple for a chartered trolley ride around historic Stillwater to take wedding photos, and the bride actually asked the driver stop at a liquor store so she could buy beer in her wedding dress. Back at the restaurant, we were treated to an amazing rhythm of course after course of food and wine, food and wine, food and wine. Each guest seated around the long table gave a personal toast to the bride and groom—I referenced Stevie Wonder—and Chris and Corri said a few words about each of the guests.

When Corri got to me, she hinted that Josh and I might not be far behind them, and it was the first time it occurred to me that anyone would wish that for me, for us. I’d spent so much time beating myself up about my divorce that I assumed everyone shared my belief that I might not deserve a second shot. Clearly, I was probably the only one who’d been thinking that, but hearing Corri’s sincere words spoken aloud was the best gift I’d received in a long time. I was, of course, a sniffling mess by the end of the toasts, but I was in good company. All in all, it was an amazing evening and as perfect a wedding as I’d ever seen.