Young marriage

Another little sister has gottten engaged.  She's 21 years old, with no degree other than an EMT and CNA certification.  No job.  Hasn't traveled, hasn't done a whole lot in life, like most 21-year-olds haven't.

I am not against marriage.  I am against marrying so young that you don't know who you are.  I am against marrying when you're in the prime of your life, when the world is open for possibilities.  I love my husband and my son, but saying I do meant saying I don't to moving to another state, traveling to Europe, going to medical school, making friends, and pursuing hobbies.  Saying I do really means saying I don't to everything else, and I don't think that is something to be done until you are sure, you are absolutely positive, that you are ready to slam the door on everything else you could do or be.

And I don't think that anyone at 21 or 22 is prepared to do that.

I have a wonderful marriage.  I firmly believe that some of that is because we were best friends first, we have similar interests and hobbies.  I also firmly believe that a lot of our marital success is that we had a firm financial foundation.  There have been a few weeks, sure, where we decided to put some extra on the mortgage or car payment instead of eating out or going to a movie or some other frivolous purchase that week.  But we have never once had to worry about where the money is going to come from for rent, mortgage,car payment, gas, utilities, food, formula or diapers.  All of our necessities have always been covered.  This has nothing to do with our hourly wages, because in reality, we're not making that much money.  Our dual income, along with his overtime pay, is sufficient, but not massive.  Paramedics aren't highly paid.  What it has to do with is that we were able, from the beginning, to manage our finances well--we had jobs that paid the bills, we didn't use credit cards, and we made sure there was money set aside for the emergencies(like when all four tires blew on my jeep, and we needed tires right that moment) so that we didn't have to resort to credit cards.   And what does that come down to?
We had jobs that were able to pay the bills, we had health insurance, and we lived within our means, or below them, from day one.

And I don't believe that anyone at 21 or 22 can have a job that means you are completely free from financial worries.  The majority of jobs require some education and experience to start paying decently. The majority of jobs a young person can get don't include health insurance, which(since I have a host of medical bills from when I didn't have insurance) is so important.
Financial problems put a stress on a marriage that is unbelievable.  And when you're young and newly married, it can prevent you from building a firm foundation for your marriage.  Instead of focusing on building your marriage, you're concerned about bills and where dinner is going to come from.  Instead of enjoying each other, you're stressed about money.
Instead of love, it dissolves into fighting.

And it's so preventable.

Wait to get married until you are financially secure.  Pursue an education, be wise in what you major in, that will allow you to have a good career in a field that, even if it doesn't pay super well, is stable and will pay the bills.  It's not about getting rich; it's about being stable.
If it's important to you that one parent stays home after you have children, plan appropriately.  If it's important to you that both parents work, plan appropriately so you can send your children to a high quality day care.
And, did I say, wait to get married.  Don't rush it.  Travel. Explore. Pursue a formal, academic education.  Work a few years. Hang out in the evenings with friends.  Get solidified in who you are and what you want.

Enjoy yourself.

I have never once regretted getting an education.  I have never once regretted the years I spent fighting fires and running EMS calls in the middle of the night.  I have never regretted the free time that allowed me to take extra fire classes, or the 2 am nights at Denny's talking to friends, or the summer days off work spent doing nothing.  I have never regretted the 14-day cruise to Hawaii, or Sharon's and my sojourns around North Carolina, or simply leaving for the weekend and discovering some new location.
I have never regretted waiting until I was 27 years old to get married, or 28 to have my first child.

I think I would have regretted marrying at 20. I would have regretted all that I didn't get to do.  All I didn't get to experience.  All I didn't get to be.

So I have no regrets.
And I can only pray my sister doesn't either.

even more changes...

my anniversary is Monday.  We'll have been married two years.
I have to say, looking back, I'm glad we did it the way we did. We were married in my parents living room. I wore a tea-length lace dress, and he wore a pair of black pants he found somewhere and a red button down shirt.  I think he even wore a tie, if memory serves.  Our best man came from work wearing his ambulance uniform, and my matron of honor wore black pants and carried a single rose. There was no decorating, no guest list, no music.  Just us, and our simple vows, and our rings.  Afterward we had a simple meal of meatballs and sandwiches and brownies and cheesecake.  We wanted our focus, all along, to be on our marriage, and not on our wedding.  We spent our 3 month engagement planning for marriage, and not a wedding.  There was no honeymoon; we just got down to the business of being a married couple and working on life together.

I can't say it's hurt us at all, untraditional though it was.

Two years, a house, a dog, a cat and a baby later, we're standing on the edge of another major change.  Change is good, but there have been so many these last few years.  Rob is leaving his job, taking a paramedic position at a much larger and busier company, where he'll be working 57 hours a week plus whatever more overtime he wants to pick up.  The pay is better overall, they pay 100% of our health insurance plus most of our copay, plus 401k and other benefits.   Mostly, though, this is a stable and professional place to work.

But it forces us to make more hard decisions.  The pay and overtime is enough that I don't have to continue working full time hours.  I can work four days a week if I want to.  Or go officially full time where I'm currently working.  I can stay home, I can go back to school and finish my RN.  I think right now I plan to just hold at the status quo, to keep working twice a week, and see how things develop. 

Sometimes I think it would be easy.  If I didn't have choices.  If I was Mennonite, or held strong convictions about women working outside the home--then my choice would be simple.  Or if I financially had to work full time.  Or if I was in a career where I could take a few years or more off without being penalized.  Or if my husband had a strong preference either way, or we couldn't afford childcare, or, conversely, if we could afford a live in nanny.  Or if my husband wanted to be a stay-at-home dad.(I've suggested it, and he just looks at me like I've grown two heads)  Or if my husband had a different sort of career, one that didn't involve 90 hour workweeks(I know him too well and know the allure of unlimited overtime).

But I do have choices.  And I am so thankful to live in a time and place a situation where I can choose to pursue a career outside of wife-and-motherhood.  For most of time, women were either in situations where they had to work outside the home(and in my family, both my grandmother and great-grandmother held jobs) or they were in a religious or cultural/social situation where pursuing a career was simply unacceptable.  I don't have any of this, so I have the whole world opened up to me.

So here we are again, changing course, finding a new equilibrium. A new balance.
There have been many, many changes these 2 years of marriage.  Each time it takes us a little while to find our balance again, but we do, and life goes on.  But for the next two weeks, while Rob takes his unused vacation time before starting a new job, we're just enjoying being a family--him and me and the baby and the dog and the cat, all just trying to figure out this thing called life.