Seven years ago, J and I met at Eagle Rock School & Professional Development Center (ERS) in Estes Park, CO when we both started a one-year teaching internship. Our experience living and working at ERS was intense, especially in such an environment focused on turning around high school drop outs to life long learners and leaders through a close-knit community of caring students and staff. This experience was the seed to our relationship, which is not perfect but ever growing.
There is a four year age difference between the two of us (ominously good according to Chinese astrology) and there could have been a slim possibility that our paths would have crossed prior to ERS. J and I went to colleges, 45 minutes apart in Western NY, but he graduated when I entered college. Completely driven by our individual interests in experiential education and our outside the box thinking, we somehow manage to work and live under the same roof (with 12 other interns) on a high altitude campus in Colorado back in 2001. J took a road trip out West searching for a change from software programming and looking for an innovative school to work at before landing at ERS. I, on the other hand, was going on a career path that began with an Outward Bound course I took before starting college and in between jobs working outdoors leading trips. My parent's mailed me a NY Times article about Eagle Rock and 4 years later, I was blown away by meeting students from the school at a conference and found myself working there 8 months later.
When we met, we were just friends. I flirted with possibilities, as I was the youngest in our intern class and just out of college. By mid-year of our internship, his flirtation with me made me curious. Curiosity can sometimes get one in trouble, but some times you have to take risks to figure things out. I thought one kiss would set us straight as friends and well that was the beginning of a long journey toward becoming a couple. If any of you are Sex in the City fans, I can simply say that I relate with Carrie's love story with Mr. Big. It was a ride to get here and not your typical boy meets girl story.
J and I parted ways for a year and a half after our time at ERS ended, once in a while spending a little time together and occasional emails, while I attended graduate school on a retrofitted school bus traveling all over North America. By my third semester, I was determined to settle in a town for a while and get out of a life style living out of my backpack. I chose to take internship in Boston and live in Cambridge for three reasons: 1) get back into rowing (what better place than the Charles, 2) innovative environmental organizations, and 3) the boy.
Simply moving to town did not make building a relationship easy and to say the least, we both dated other people before we both grew up and realized how we fit one another. Flash forward three years and now we have been living together for over a year.
Word to the wise: Relationships are not instant and its okay to struggle to get to that point. Becoming secure as individuals and letting a relationship take seed on its own is OK.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment