It was only a couple weeks until we told each other the "L" word. And until then, Dan would always say, "Do you know what is happening here?" Finally, I told him, "It's already happened, I'm in love with you."
Our families didn't take our relationship too well. The first time my mom met Dan she grilled him hard. "So Lyndsey said you were engaged before, What happened?" "You're a whole lot older than my daughter, what are your intentions?" When she was done, Dan stood up from the table and his shirt had sweat marks on the back. I was mortified, Dan said, "Well, I would ask the same questions if you were my daughter." Handled it like a pro, no matter how hot the fire blazed in that room.
Dan took me to meet his family the following weekend at their church. I was so nervous. I spent hours deciding what I should wear. Just how casual is your church? Well what does your mom normally wear? This shirt, or this one? Church was pretty easy, you can't do much talking in the middle of the sermon. So we decided to join Dan's parents at Brunch following the service. That is when my questioning happened. They were a little more tactful with their questioning than my mom was, and I thought that I had done well enough. They invited us over to their house later and offered me a drink, but quickly remembered that I was only 20 and said, "Well how about a water, or coke?"
Dan took me on a tour of their house. Big and beautiful. Dan's step father, I learned, is a builder. We held hands the whole way and decided yes, this is where we will be married. The aisle could go this way. You could stand there. Our dance floor could go down there. We had been together such a short time, but already knew we were going to be married at Dan's family home.
After all, we had looked down that well lit road.
The next day, I asked Dan what they thought of me. Did they really like me? "They said you were definitely young." The age difference never occurred to me to be a problem. Yes it was the butt of a whole lot of jokes. Yes we laughed that I was in sixth grade while Dan was at his college graduation. But I felt that our maturity met somewhere in between. We were in love and could handle the age difference.
10. 22. 2009
This is a hard story to tell. I would like to stress that while, the emotions I felt this day were very real for me then, I love my life now and wouldn't change a thing.
It is beautiful how God uses really tough times to make us the people we are today.
I hadn't been feeling well. The swine flu was spreading like wildfire. Both of my little brothers and my mom got it. And I was sure that I had too. I was in the middle of moving out of my apartment and into a town home with my older sister and her boyfriend. Dan came over to the new place before work to check it out and drop his dog off with me. He would be spending the night over there with me. I wanted him there with me the first night in a new place. And maybe, I planned to have him help unload a few boxes.
A couple weeks back we had planned a spur of the moment, no reason at all, Mexico trip, and would be leaving on the 25th for just a few days. Dan mentioned something, before leaving for work that day, about not having had a visit from my Aunt Flow last week. Would she be accompanying us on vacation? I just said that I hoped not and kissed him good bye.
I needed to get a few last things out of my apartment that day and had planned to finish up the cleaning and turn my keys in. I had to stop at the store for some cleaning supplies and walked past the aisle with all the feminine products. All of a sudden I thought about what Dan had mentioned earlier. I kept telling myself, Lyndsey don't worry about it, you have been irregular before, you are on birth control, you're fine. But I decided to pick up a box of pregnancy tests anyways. A four pack. On sale.
A couple hours later I was sitting in my empty apartment. And the pregnancy tests were staring at me from the counter. Taunting me. So I drank my bottle of water, read the directions too many times and waited to see if the plus sign appeared.
Curse words began racing through my mind but I could not catch my breath long enough to say any out loud. Maybe its wrong. More water, second test. Maybe the plus sign means positive, as in you're good, as in you can't possibly be plus one. Read the directions again.
Where is my damn cell phone? My fingers were fumbling around the phone like I had never seen one before. Allie answered the phone and it took only seconds for her to realize I was sobbing uncontrollably and this call wasn't going to be the usual gab session. All I could get out to her was that I had taken two tests and both were positive. She started crying right along with me and talked me through taking the third and the fourth tests while on the phone with her.
I kept saying over and over that this can't possibly be happening. Dan was for sure going to leave me. Sure he said he loved me, sure we talked about a marriage and a family one day. But he is going to be so mad at me. I can't ruin his life too. What am I going to do? How am I going to tell him? How am I going to tell my mom. His mom? I'm too young. He's too old. Our relationship is too new. But still those little blue plus signs were there. They seemed to be throbbing, pulsing like a strobe light to the beat of my racing heart.
Allie heard things come out of me that day that no one else will ever know. She saw a side of me, no one had ever seen before, and there was no judgement. She allowed me to really feel. To feel everything however hard. She was so reassuring telling me that Dan loves me and that everything would be okay. That she would always be there for me. That together we could handle anything. She even called planned parenthood to make an appointment for the next morning to get a real test. The lady told her that at- home tests don't give false positives though.
I looked like a train had hit me in the face. I was terrified. My body was shaking, and I was so mad, why me? I am not that girl. There was so many emotions, that poured out of my eyes like waterfalls. I couldn't breathe. After praying with Allie, I got off the phone and into the shower to try and steam out my sinuses. I sat crumpled on the floor of the shower. I felt so broken. The earth had dissolved right under me and I was falling. Falling hard and hot like the water from the faucet.
I stayed there until the water turned cold and finally emerged from the shower. I quickly realized that I was in an empty apartment without a towel. Shivering both from being cold and from complete fear, I wiped the water with my hands from my body, and realized I was by myself in this apartment, but not alone. And my hand rested over my flat stomach.
Dan would be back to my place soon, and I kept going over and over it in my head. I was so scared to tell him. I was sure he was going to get his dog and leave. I was sure he wouldn't want to be a part of my life anymore. I was sure I would be on my own to make a decision about this baby. And I thought I could for sure kiss our Mexico trip good bye.
Dan met me after work, back at the town home. I was so quiet, and closed off. I had used up all the tears I was allotted for the moment. Thank God, He allows our eyes to rest every now and then, on those really hard days. Dan would reach for my hand to hold and I would pull mine away. I am sure Dan wondered what was going on with me, I was my fun spirited normal self that morning. Maybe he just chalked it up to my having the swine flu. I kept thinking, "Okay, I'm going to tell him now." But I would talk myself right back out of it. I wasn't ready to be on my own with all of this. I kept thinking maybe if I don't say the words out loud they won't be true. Maybe I could make myself believe it would go away.
Finally, it was time to go to bed. I had to tell him, I had an appointment the following morning and I had to go. The lights went off in the room. I still didn't know how to tell him. Luckily he helped. "You have had a pretty dumb day huh?" "uh yes." "Is it just because you weren't feeling well." "No, but I'm scared to tell you, I think you'll leave me." "Did you cheat on me?" "No. I'm pregnant." The words finally just spewed out of my mouth, like a geyser that had been waiting to explode for years.
I was crying again. My reprieval was over. Dan just held me tighter. I was so thankful the lights were off. For some reason it is always easier to break down when the lights are off. All my insecurities were flooded back. The once non-existent fears about our age difference suddenly seemed to hard to overcome. Before that day, I was so confident in the love we shared, however new. But now, it seemed not good enough.
Dan took my hand and said, "It's okay, we'll figure this out. I'm not leaving you. We'll do this together. I love you."
In the dark and stillness of my bedroom, I knew, we would get through this delicate and challenging time. The calm and comfort in the middle of the storm, the one that God grants our souls, the one that makes you feel like everything will be okay again, that's the one I was most thankful for on that hard, emotional day.
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