“Sounds like a Country Song”…Life as I go it… “Taking the Long Way Around”

With my sisters entering their forties, aunts and uncles hitting the big 5-0 mark and my slightly senior parents inching towards seventy, I’ve been wondering lately, “When did I wake up an ‘adult?’” I don’t really consider myself or my husband a grown-up per-se, and I thought getting married was the most adult thing we’ve done but as I hear stories and updates from family, friends, frenemies, foes, and acquaintances, I can’t help but ask myself, “Am I missing something?”

As a stubborn, Irish, redhead riddled with childhood circumstances that caused me to grow up with extreme caution, hyper-organization and an aptitude for a somewhat zealous life-planning scheme, I have always done things my own way. With constant evolving ideas of my future and changes in my teen years, none of my dreams or aspirations panned out quite as I thought, so far, but I definitely have lived a life with many tales to tell, and I’m only a quarter of a century old.

First I wanted to be an acrobat, which never worked out and somehow conformed into a desire to attend college at the University of Oregon. Then my teenage years brought on an obsession with becoming a lawyer and attending Pepperdine. My sisters championed a whim to attend Berkeley, and in the midst of this I was wrestling with these ideas and ideals of how men would fit into anything I wanted.

I always wanted to get married but I had major issues with picking the completely wrong guys. After my first boyfriend completely screwed me over in more ways than one, I decided I’d be cool and live the Sex and the City life and then when I wanted a baby just ask my best friend, who happened to be a cute, gay male I once had a crush on, to be a sperm donor and leave out that whole relationship sticky-ness altogether!

Somewhere between ages 16 and 19 I ended up working towards my original childhood dream of attending the University of Oregon, landed an amazing boyfriend, somehow decided I wanted to be a music writer, worked through college as a nanny for the best family on the planet, and came to the conclusion that marriage and children could wait until I was at least thirty.

Drama, drama, drama, yadda, yadda, yadda, the entrance into my twenties was filled with tears, fears coming true, and a seemingly endless line of personal and family obstacles for me to conquer. In the midst of it, I committed to a sane relationship with my, rock, my man, my current hubby, Eben. While dating we had about 9 months apart including a brief hiatus when some best friends left us all behind to grow up and be in love, and when I spent a term in London to study and do an internship.

After all that, and a whole heap of other drama, during a 2008 trip to Florida to visit family we decided that we’d commit to spending our lives together, get the hell out of Oregon and just be together after I graduated in 2009. We moved in with my “aunt” – you know one of those family members that isn’t blood related but might as well be. We started saving and in early 2009 when it seemed like everything had turned to shit, planning our escape was the light at the end of the tunnel. Eben snuck in a marriage proposal, we planned a wedding in three months, got married in front of (almost) all the people we love for one big goodbye, good luck and moving on party to ensure that everyone knew we weren’t completely insane and we drove away in a Penske truck filled with our life and treasures towing the car that had taken us through all of our memories and then into our future!

I’m one of those people who just has to believe that everything happens for a reason. Otherwise I may have suicidal tendencies. So, in the wake of losing best friends to other relationships, losing a parent to bad behaviors and bullshit, leaving our world behind to salvage the only love I had ever truly known, losing a bunch of stuff when the car was broken into at the beginning of the journey, we just had to continue to do things my own way and take life detours to get to that new horizon.

I had a great friend tell me she admired the courage it took to just pick up and go. Most people couldn’t do it. Sometimes I look back and don’t know how we did it either…

We have family members who are having first and second children, buying and remodeling houses, getting new cars, and worried about fancy medical insurance and somehow we just missed that boat. I’ll confess that I’ve had babies on the brain lately. My body has kicked into gear and I’m feeling that I’m at my prime for motherhood but we’re just not ready.

I pretend that’s what I want but I think and think about it for hours and I think I may have missed the memo. Is there something fundamentally screwed up about being okay with a simple existence in my mid-twenties?

Occasionally I get frustrated. Some people my age have new cars, higher paying jobs with full medical coverage, predictable schedules, and holiday pay or whatever. I wonder if that’s what I should be leaning towards or looking for.

Now when I think about what I want to be when I grow up I think about moving back to Oregon, getting an awesome little house in South Eugene, Eben opening up his dream restaurant, me helping with that, freelance writing for some Oregon publications and having little, stubborn, Irish, redheaded kids to call our own.

I’ve always “Taken the Long Way Around,” like that Dixie Chicks song, that I totally love. I could never do anything like anybody else. It's my way or the high way! My best friend calls Eben and I “gypsies” because we just go and do what we want. My uncles think we are crazy and irresponsible because we live in an apartment and not a “real house.” When I hear about friends our age that used to party harder than you can imagine, spend all their money on game systems, nights out at the bar, tattoos, piercings, and concerts, are now getting married and having babies it just makes me sigh.

I can’t even imagine it! Eben and I can’t even fathom taking on a dog, let along anything else! We may be on the “short bus” of getting into this adulthood thing but I just don’t see the rush. I’d rather wait and stave off a lifetime of debt then dive into it now. What's the hurry?

Eben got the best job he could get for himself in Tampa and is working with the kind of Chef he wants to become. I got a job at the same restaurant, which is giving me the kind of experience you can’t buy, the kind of experience I thought I may never get and that will come in handy no matter what happens to us. We share one car right now and save so much on the high Florida insurance prices, which has its pros and cons, but we live simply: two bedroom apartment central to everything, tucked back into a good part of Tampa but not too expensive. We don’t buy useless stuff, we can afford to go out when we want and enjoy the luxury of staying at home and unwinding just the same. We like the simplicities of life and cherish what we have worked for and earned. So when I want babies or puppies or start feeling like we missed a spot the "grown up boat" I remind myself that we don’t have it so bad.

Yeah, like the rest of America, we have a couple thousand dollars of consumer debt, but it's from moving down here. Neither of us have school loans or school debts. We make enough money to cover all the bases. We are healthy and happier than we ever thought we could be. We have an amazing group of friends, family and supporters who share wisdom and loads of love with us. We have each other, a roof over our heads, a working vehicle and an optimism that is kind of contagious.

So, am I jealous of old Joe Somebody back home trading in his old car for a family-friendly vehicle, or of high school buddy Jane Doe being pregnant and decorating the nursery with her boyfriend? With a glass of wine in my hand on a Saturday night out with friends talking about going to a theme park or concert the next day and knowing I don’t have to get up until 10am on Sunday, I can honestly confess that jealousy doesn’t really come into play. Besides, competing with old friends, foes, or anyone else is just a waste really; a fleeting thought.

We are all loved, lucky and blessed in our own ways. And, since I’ve always done it my way, enjoyed the roads ahead and the ones I’ve left behind, I’ll continue to “Take the Long Way Around!” I’ll let you know how it is when we get there…wherever we go, there we are!

Taking The Long Way Around By THE DIXIE CHICKS

My friends from high school
Married their high school boyfriends
Moved into houses in the same ZIP codes where their parents live
But I, I could never follow
No I, I could never follow

I hit the highway in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling
Lived like a gypsy
Six strong hands on the steering wheel

I've been a long time gone now
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
But I've always found my way somehow
By taking the long way
Taking the long way around

I met the queen of whatever
Drank with the Irish and smoked with the hippies
Moved with the shakers
Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to
No I, I could never follow

It's been two long years now
Since the top of the world came crashing down
And I'm getting' it back on the road now
But I'm taking the long way
Taking the long way aroundI'm taking the long way

Well, I fought with a stranger and I met myself
I opened my mouth and I heard myself
It can get pretty lonely when you show yourself
Guess I could have made it easier on myself
But I, I could never follow

Well, I never seem to do it like anybody else
Maybe someday, someday I'm gonna settle down
If you ever want to find me I can still be found
Taking the long way
Taking the long way around