On 9/15/93 I wrote that she'd told me I was going to break K's heart, and that every time I mentioned him, she said, "It's not that serious, is it?" on 9/19/93 I wrote that she'd told me, when I asked her what the reaction would be if K and I got engaged, that I needed to marry (to quote her) "a manly man." She did qualify it by saying she didn't know K well enough to really form an opinion, though. And I can't find it now, but there was one entry I read over earlier where I'd mentioned something about Christmas and my mother had responded (theoretically jokingly, but in retrospect I'm not so sure there wasn't some serious intent behind it), "Oh, we'll run him off by Christmas." My entries are full of scribble about how my parents didn't think K was right for me, didn't think I knew what I was doing, thought we were far too serious, and so on and so forth.
It's really funny. As I read my old journals, even though I was 25 at the time I was writing, in so many ways I *do* sound like a goofy teenager. K was my first real, serious interest (I had a couple of boyfriends through all of high school and college and law school, and that was it), and at one point my mother told me, basically, that I hadn't had enough boyfriends to have any basis for comparison, and that I liked the attention I got from K more than I liked the person. Of course I told her she was cracked, and even now, I don't think that was the case. From what I wrote, I really, genuinely loved K and thought he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But I do come off sounding like a giddy teenager, refusing to even credit anything my parents said, refusing to consider it, defending K to the hilt, thinking he could do no wrong and my parents could do no right, completely unwilling to listen to any of their reasoning. Reading now what I wrote then, it does sound a lot more like a 16-year-old trying to defend the boyfriend her parents think is totally inappropriate than it does a 25-year-old making any sort of reasoned argument about why she's dating the man she is, and why she plans to marry him. *SIGH* Maybe my mother saw something then that I couldn't, or wouldn't, see. And now, for all I know, she's somewhere either letting out a shout of joy that I've finally realized this, shaking her head that I didn't do it sooner, or both.
Reading my journals has been sort of depressing. I had so many doubts about things - in spite of wanting to ignore what my parents said, I had my own doubts about my relationship with K. I wondered if I should have ever gone to law school, if that wasn't a mistake. I look back at the saga of disappointing interviews and crappy in-between jobs and wonder if I've really made any progress in the career field. Right now, it sure doesn't feel like it.
One thing I do know, though: I had to marry K. Had I not, and had we not stuck together for the time we did, J would never have been born. And he is truly my little sunshine, I don't know what I'd do without him, and I wouldn't trade him for anything or anyone in the world. :-)
Gotta work, I've spent way too much time dredging up my past and writing this. More later.
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