The change of plans.

Today, right now, I think the problem is that I didn't really ever expect to get married--not because of some self-esteem issue or firmly-held feminist convictions. It's just that I didn't have very many boyfriends--or dates, for that matter.

There was the high school boyfriend. In a fit of adolescent idiocy, we were an "item" for basically all four years of high school, and when it ended, I was completely devastated in that dramatic way that only a naive 18-year-old girl can be. Woe was me. How could I ever go on. Blah blah blah. Finally, I came to my senses. And now he is bald and fat. Ah, fate: thank you for being cruel to him. (Kidding. Kind of. Mostly.) That, however, is beside the point.

Then there was the college boyfriend. In a surprising twist of fate, he turned out to be gay. Enough said? Mmmm, no. That's really what you get for falling for your good friend who is exceptionally good at counseling. OF COURSE he's gay. His entire wardrobe was lumberjack themed at the time, though, so it wasn't completely obvious on first blush.

I got home from my mission in time to be thoroughly disgusted by every boy who took interest (however slight) in me: the guy my family refers to as "sweat-wart Mike" (his name really does say it all); the guy who took me to the children's section of Borders on a date to read books but could not, as luck would have it, read very well and then promptly wrote the date up in a charming article for The Daily Universe; the elder from my mission who, after being rejected several times on the phone, came to the US so I could reject him in person; the guy who deigned to ask me out and gave me a mission report for several hours, although he'd been home for about eight years; etc.

ANM had all the puzzle pieces, including the ones that others had lacked: he was motivated, kind, intelligent, hot, interesting, fun, curious, funny, and straight... I could go on. I spent several weeks in shock when he told me he wanted to date me. The entire year before we got married I felt like I was living in a dream, playing boyfriend/girlfriend with a figment of my imagination. But I wasn't: I was just dating the perfect man. And the obvious thing to do if you have the perfect husband and the perfect relationship is to have a perfect family.

Nothing like a little pressure.

It's not that I didn't want to be a wife and a mother. I did. I do. I just didn't really plan on it, per se, because I never found anybody I would've loved to be married to until I was 25. So I never thought about how many kids would be the perfect number or if I wanted boys or girls or what names I really liked or how I would cope with the isolation of staying at home all day with a demanding little emperor. I just wasn't one of those girls whose dream since childhood is to be a wife and a mom.

I'm not really good at it. I don't love it every day, or even most days recently. But I have to remember that this IS what I want, regardless of how hard and mind-numbing it is. Because it's also beautiful and fun.

[Note to self: find way to talk about being a mom that is a happy medium between exalting it and bemoaning it.]