“Something’s kind of bugging me,” I started. “What’s that?” he asked, calm as usual. “Well, if we get pregnant before we’re, you know, married, I’d want to have the same last name as the baby. I mean, I don’t know if I’d even change my name again anyway. Actually, I probably would, which is kind of weird, but what do you think?”

We went around about it for a while, and I was firm about what I wanted: We could either give our hypothetical baby my last name, or we could get married and I’d take Josh’s name. It was entirely bizarre to hear myself say that I would change my name. When I’d married John, I had struggled with the name issue. In the end, I had taken his last name but also kept my own–kind of hyphenated, but without the actual hyphen.

When I got divorced, it had been a huge relief to reclaim my maiden name. In fact, I’d seriously considered getting an “S” tattoo as a way of branding myself as my own woman. But, now that having a child was an actual possibility, things felt different. Sure, I loved my last name, but I also thought it would be really cool to share a name with Josh and our future kids. And I wanted to truly move forward—to embrace life with Josh in a love-like-you’ve-never-been-hurt-before kind of way. To say a big fuck you to divorce. It didn’t have a hold on me anymore.

Almost as surprising as my willingness to change my name was Josh’s opinion that if we got pregnant, we should go ahead and get married. With my concerns laid to rest, I relaxed into daily life and enjoyed the anticipation of it all. We were doing things our way, and life was humming along with a pleasant whir. Until—

The last week in June, Josh got laid off. It was 2008, and the recession suddenly seemed quite real. All bets were off. Nothing was certain. What about Napa? To hell with vacation. What about the mortgage? And—Lord, help me—what about our hypothetical baby?

The big day had finally arrived. I’d been working so hard for this—all those bowls of ice cream, the many miles I hadn’t run. The five pounds I’d willingly gained in my quest for motherhood. It had all come down to this. So I ran out to buy a copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility and started charting my body temperature and other, um, indicators. I stocked up on prenatal vitamins and pregnancy tests and let me tell you, I was thrilled.

We promised to keep it a secret, because most people wouldn’t understand why we would do such a thing pre-ring. Plus, I didn’t want anyone asking me how things were going. I’d seen too many friends struggle to get pregnant, and I was prepared for it to take a long time—maybe we’d even get married first. So mum was the word. Except, I cheated and told my therapist because I knew she would provide the squeal that I needed to hear.

At the end of the month, we went to Iowa to see Josh’s brother, Andy, graduate from college. It was a great chance to spend more time with Josh’s family, and I even felt genuinely happy when I saw the big diamond that Andy’s fiance was wearing. It turns out that I wasn’t all that concerned about getting engaged. After all, I’d been there, done that, and I could say from experience that there’s nothing magical about a ring. I was just happy to be moving toward the next phase of my life with a wonderful man. I didn’t know what the future held, but I finally knew that Josh was serious about his future holding me.

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.

I have to admit, it was reassuring to learn that we could fight well. As bad as I felt, I still felt safe. And why shouldn’t I, right? Well, unfortunately, I had experienced the other kind of conflict—the scary kind. With Josh, I didn’t want to run from the house, I didn’t freeze like a deer in headlights, and I didn’t doubt whether we should be together. I shared exactly what was on my mind, and he didn’t understand where I was coming from—that’s why it was a fight.

The fundamental problem was the same as it had been since we moved in together. I didn’t always feel confident about where we were headed. As Josh had admitted in his blog post a few months before, he wasn’t the best at sharing how he felt about me. Had I made a colossal mistake by shacking up with—and mingling credit with—a commitment-phobe? Bringing it up with him didn’t seem to help all that much, so I did what most women do—I brought it up with my girlfriends.

I was still running regularly with Andrea and Daniela, and though we were in totally different places in our lives, we always had good insights for each other. Andrea had a new condo, was in a long-distance relationship, and was making her way through law school. Daniela was wrapping up grad school and was expecting her first child in July. Running through the snowy streets of Minneapolis, we dished about school, work, and (of course) our love lives.

I confessed to my friends about my impatience with Josh. What bugged me the most was that it felt like I had no control. I hated the social convention that men typically decide when it’s time to make a relationship official. Of course I didn’t want to move ahead before Josh was ready, but he kept saying that buying our house had seemed like a bigger deal than getting married. So what was the hold up? And who gave men such power in the first place? Oh, yeah. Men did.

Why in God’s name would a divorced women be in such a rush? Wasn’t I afraid of making the same mistake twice? Strangely enough, I wasn’t. I hadn’t felt like this before—comfortable, confident, at peace in love (though clearly this particular aspect of our relationship wasn’t making me feel so peaceful). I’d known him for twelve and a half years and had been with him for a year and a half. I wasn’t the least bit afraid, and Lord knows I wanted the babymaking to commence. This was the stuff I told my friends, any they hypothesized about my situation without telling me what to do.

The next weekend, Josh and I were (surprise!) watching basketball in the basement, when he got a phone call from his little brother, Andy, who was on spring break in Mexico with his girlfriend. I immediately knew what the call was about, and my suspicions were confirmed as Josh smiled and gave his congratulations. He hung up the phone and told me that his 22-year-old brother was engaged. And I did what any mature feminist would do. I went upstairs and cried.

Dear Primary Love Interest,

I know I don’t express myself emotionally very well. I am a man, after all. Granted that some men are better than others (screw you, Hugh Grant—you f’ed it up for all of us), and I may be skewing towards one end of the continuum, but most men seem to be somewhat poor performers in this category. Probably because we talk about football and donuts when we get together with each other, and with the exception of Homer Simpson, there is not a great deal of emotion tied to donuts. I realize it’s not the most ideal trait in a life partner. Rest assured, though…I’m working on it.

As you queried the other night, yes, this has indeed been a common motif in relationships in my past. And yes, I am fully aware that a good relationship requires care and some degree of “work” (trust me, I’m FULLY aware). But that is a tricky thing, you know? How much is work, and how much is “work” and how much is Work, and what is the significance of each? And when it is incredibly easy to be with someone, as I feel about me and you, it also becomes easy to get complacent and take certain things for granted….like saying you look hot in that tube top, or no those jeans fit you perfectly and don’t at all make your butt look big. Unless that’s the look you’re going for—I don’t know what’s “in” these days because my Cosmo subscription lapsed. Regardless, I know that the way I feel about you means that I would do any amount of work/”work”/Work to make things…er…work. Clarification: I KNOW things will always work between us…I have Trust in that…but I would do these things to make us both as happy as we deserve since we so directly and dynamically influence each other’s happiness now. P.S. I don’t use caps lock and capital letters frivolously.

I’m not a good enough amateur psychologist to really hash out what from my childhood made me this way (I have a few hunches, at best), but I think it’s what made me a good athlete—that never too high and never too low temperament. And having male roommates for my entire life didn’t help but hammer home these habits. Especially the silent ones. It might seem odd, but it’s always been a positive attribute in my life, an easy way to be, until now, and so the habit is hard to break given the decades of positive reinforcement it has received. Just remember that this is the first time I’ve spent more than several nights a week and the weekends with someone with pleasantly different anatomy consecutively, and it takes a little getting used to. I am, however, REALLY enjoying the constantly clean house and that there is ACTUALLY food in the fridge all the time. But please know that it is a process and that change is sometimes slow and don’t be afraid to help shove it along whenever you feel you need too. My easy-going temperament also means that I readily absorb helpful criticism, as well. Lucky you!

It’s odd, because women get painted with the “moody” label, but I am too, though it’s often really hard to detect on the surface. With me, it particularly applies to being in the mood to talk about serious things like new pets or kids or marriage or State of the Relationship type stuff. Most of the time when you bring them up, I might make a joke or two, and not really engage in the conversation in any great depth. I seem to put it off ’til later, but later doesn’t always come soon enough. Part of it is that I’m not aware ’til later (when you make me aware) that you are really serious about talking about these things in depth. Part is that when I’m home I’m trying to mentally decompress from work and life and these topics seem very Serious and are daunting and require many arbitrary mental energy units to address. Make no mistake, I’m not trying to avoid these conversations. In my head, I have a vague notion of “crossing those bridges when we come to them” and that the whole buying a house together situation should answer some of them for you already. I’m sorry for not communicating those assumptions of mine frequently enough, but I know we’ll get to all those questions and their answers eventually, and I’m still learning what you need and how to provide you with it.

Like I said…I’m working on it.

Josh spent a good deal of time out in the garage, making his own ruckus with various saws. He insisted on putting a television and an old loveseat out there, basically so he could drink beer in style while taking breaks from his woodworking projects. “Who needs to hang out in the garage when we have two TVs in the house?” I asked. Clearly, that was a stupid question. You’d think that having three brothers would have prepared me to understand men.

Speaking of my brothers, Andy and Hilary recruited a huge group of family and friends to participate in the Brain Injury Association’s Walk for Thought in October. Their son, Ethan, had recovered fully from the Shaken Baby Syndrome injury he’d suffered in the spring. Team Ethan raised more funds than any other team, and we had a great time walking around St. Paul’s Como Park on a crisp Saturday morning. It was one of many days that reinforced my decision to move home to Minnesota.

Yes, moving home had been a good move on many fronts. In November, Josh and I celebrated the first anniversary of our final “pseudo date,” the turning point in our relationship. One year in, our biggest problem was my own discomfort with the fact that we didn’t have quite the same—how shall I put this—heat that we’d had before moving in together. It’s not that I minded the rhythm we’d settled into. I was actually fine with it, and Josh assured me that it was OK—natural, even. I tried to take his word for it, because what did I know about normal?

As Josh and I became increasingly comfortable sharing our lives, I realized something that came as a bit of a surprise to me—I did want to make it more official than a mortgage. Right after my divorce, I’d wondered if marriage would ever feel necessary to me again. After all, what did it really mean? But the more I thought about it, the more I was sure that yes, I still believed in marriage, and I wanted that for us.

One Saturday night around Thanksgiving, I couldn’t help but blurt it out. Josh was cooking up a two-hour culinary masterpiece, and I was drinking a glass of wine and pretending to be willing to help. We were flirting and kissing between veggie chopping and sautéing, and I just had to say something, right then and there. “You know,” I teased, “I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to get married again, but you’re starting to make me sure, especially if you keep cooking like this.”

I told him that I didn’t want to get married right away, but that I would want to eventually. Josh kind of laughed it off like I wasn’t really serious, and—Lord, help me—I  had no idea what to make of it. I let it drop, and we went on to have a wonderful late-night dinner, but the conversation left me feeling insecure. Maybe it had been a mistake to move in together—you know, that whole why-buy-the-cow thing. A dreadful analogy that clashes with my feminist sensibilities, but still. The last thing I needed was to get into a situation where I wanted more than he did, but maybe I already had.

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.

Ethan was being examined one last time before being released, and his doctors thought he would make a full recovery. He would need ongoing follow-up appointments, and he still had some minor issues with his eyes, but he would be okay. And the best part was that Andy and Hilary had been cleared in the case, so Ethan would be able to go home with them.

Ethan would obviously not be going back to daycare. In fact, the home daycare was shut down because of the investigation. So, Andy and Hilary had to scramble to find childcare, and the grandparents really stepped to the plate. Hilary’s mom, also known as Nancy or Grandma Nana, would come from Louisville to care for Ethan for a few weeks. Then, each of my parents would take a month off of work to be full-time grandparents. My mom had the summer off anyway, so she’d be with him until August. In total, that bought Andy and Hilary four months before they’d need to come up with a new childcare arrangement.

My brother and sister-in-law had been through so much in the last year: bed rest, pre-term labor, the NICU, and now, this. I felt terrible for them. And my poor parents. They’d been through the wringer, too. Not only had they experienced the scare of Ethan’s injury, but they’d also worried an awful lot about me during the end of my marriage and my divorce. Loving people is damn hard work. Sometimes, there’s very little we can do to protect the people we love. And yet, most of us are quite willing—eager, even—to go on loving.

It was April 2007, and while my family was still recovering from Ethan’s injury, my life was in an upward spiral in many respects. I started my new job the day after Ethan got out of the hospital, and the next weekend, Tucker and I moved in with Megan. Josh and I hadn’t talked much about living together again since his lease would go through August, but he’d recently brought it up in front of my girlfriends. A few days later, I’d received this e-mail:

…speaking of how important you are to me, I also wanted to make sure you weren’t too freaked out by what I said about your/my/our living situation when we were over at Daniela’s. We haven’t really talked a ton about it, but I really could see us living together quite happily in the not-too-distant future and just wanted it to be on the table. Bringing it up like that in front of the girls was maybe not the best way to put it out there again, but my brain was not functioning correctly due to all the beer. Yeah, yeah—that’s the ticket. Since we haven’t discussed it at length, I’m not sure what your feelings are on the whole issue. From my perspective, I’ve always thought it was a pretty huge thing (i.e., kind of a test run for being married—I mean, what’s the difference after that?), but at this stage in my life it seems less huge and just more of a natural next step. That probably has a LOT to do with how comfortable and happy I am with you, so hopefully you take that as a compliment.

What?! He always thought it was a pretty huge thing, but now it seemed less huge? I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I tried to take his word that it was meant as a compliment. Whatever he was trying to say, I did like the idea of a “test run.” I hadn’t lived with John until we’d already set our wedding date, and Lord knows that didn’t play out very well.

Now, I’m not saying that cohabitating before marriage or engagement is right for everyone. Hell, some people still call it living (say it in your best Dana-Carvey-as-the-Church-Lady voice) in sin. But as a recently divorced woman, it made a ridiculous amount of sense to me. In the past year, I’d learned a lot about love, about marriage, and about myself, and I knew that if I ever got married again, it would be different. If I ever got married again, it would be because I already felt married, he already felt married, and—what do you know?—it worked.

Even before my divorce, I got emotional at weddings. I love the way a wedding brings the love into the limelight, makes the private public, and gives weight and formality to the couple’s intentions. It’s simply touching to be witness to such transparency of emotion. And, if you’ve known one or both of the people for years, there’s the added delight of having seen the awkwardness, struggle, and growth that led up to meeting Mr. or Ms. Wonderful.

So yes, I love a good wedding. Or, at least I did before I became a more jaded version of myself, one who’d recently hocked my wedding rings online and donated my beautiful gown to a good cause. But, I reminded myself that this wedding wasn’t about me, and I got myself a date and a dress. Since my parents and Josh would be there, it seemed like a relatively painless way to get back on the wedding horse.

Still, when the processional started, my heart was all aflutter. I held on tight to Josh’s hand as the bride floated down the aisle, and as the wedding party assembled at the alter, I was surprised to realize that my eyes were dry. No tears, yet brimming with emotion. I felt like I was watching a wedding for the first time, and in some ways, I was. The gravity of the occasion was clear, and I felt a a little wistful.

I’d been there, done that, and yet here I was, a single woman. If I would ever find the right guy (and maybe, just maybe, he was the tall fellow sitting next to me in the pew), how would we celebrate a marriage when I’d already cashed in my wedding chips? I envied the bride and groom their beautiful wedding, which they would hopefully reminisce about in their old age. I’d also had a lovely ceremony, but it was hard for me to think about my wedding day without wanting to whack myself on the forehead.

Josh and I stopped off at the pub en route to the reception. We ordered a glass of wine, and he listened attentively as I shared how I’d experienced the wedding. I felt like I’d been through a lot that night, and part of me was still hurting, but even through my pain, I could see the truth.

It was a cold winter night, and I was drinking wine in a cozy pub with a thoughtful man who knew both how to validate and to challenge me. In the midst of my heartache and soul-searching, I’d stumbled into a relationship that felt righter than right—one where I felt safe enough to share my healing experience. The truth, I realized, was that although I was nowhere near healed (whatever that means), I was ridiculously happy, and that was enough to make this former bride ready to face any old wedding reception. Bring on the hometown acquaintances, the toasts, and even that damn Electric Slide.