We skied Taylor together with mutual friends on a late March morning with the unresolved promise of rain. The snow was subpar. The boy was interesting and fun to talk to. I distinctly recall saying to my friend in the car afterward, "He's cute." My friend would go on to date my ex, so all's fair.
The guy and I developed a pretty great friendship. I inserted him into my big noisy group of roommates and extended friend-family, and when we weren't partying or riding with them he and I did something that I wanted so badly and didn't have a partner for: long runs. We talked constantly. I couldn't stop. I imagined bigger adventures, overnighters, traveling together out of the valley to find new mountains, feeding my craving for novelty.
I was an outlier in my friend group. Our ratio of getting high and drunk and socializing and hanging out versus going hard, going uphill, maintaining constant motion, was a little out of whack for my taste and I would get antsy and agitate for action. They put up with me but I was kind of annoying to them, and they were kind of annoying to me.
Also I had a boyfriend, had had one for over four years. He was strange and so smart and incredibly funny, loyal to a fault, passionate, stubborn, and polarizing. But he didn't run and hadn't read a book in quite some time, and while I thought we were probably going to get married, because I settled into that mindset pretty easily in relationships, I started to dream of climbing mountains, fastpacking, bikepacking, talking for hours about books and ideas.
And then I did something about it. I poured my sadness and dissatisfaction and longing into a vessel that didn't fit and gave it to my boyfriend with little explanation. I moved out and forfeited the dog we owned together. I hid from our friends and tried to find normalcy and cried a lot.
But I also started pursuing this other opportunity. He was a big reason I did what I did, although I've barely admitted that to anyone. It's probably obvious to everyone now but I so, so, so didn't want to hurt my ex even more by putting that out into the world, that simple, common trope: she left you for someone else.
This guy though, he was sexy and funny and smart and interesting and engaged and kind and full of joy. He wanted to go everywhere and said yes without hesitating to every questionable adventure I cooked up. He was there for me always. Before we were together and I got the job at the newspaper, he was more excited and proud and supportive than anyone besides my parents. He still reads every article I write, and when I bought my house he threw his time, money, and expertise into the task of doubling the property's value. And he puts up with my fixation on the "right" way to wash dishes.
My mom and her sisters met him in 2018. That was five months after he first talked to my parents, when he stood outside the operating room and called to say I was under the knife after a potentially deadly ectopic pregnancy. Fortunately my parents are good, understanding people and appreciated him and that hard call, instead of placing blame.
Anyway, my mom obviously liked him, because he's easy to like. And then he came to New Hampshire, to the Tellman stronghold itself, even though for a couple years I felt too burned by the decimation of my past relationships to try and draw him further into my family. But it was fine, great, he was an ally and he charmed my sister and was open and kind to everyone and during dinner prep one night my father, who has been able to find something to like in all my young men although he clearly wants the world for me, leaned over and said, "I love him," with that emphasis.
While it rained we talked in the New Hampshire breakfast nook about engagement and titanium rings and none of it was surprising. But then we were back at home and he did manage to surprise me, on one knee with a ring box as I turned back around after applying sunscreen on a mountain plateau during a run in the northern Teton range, with a titanium ring that he had bought even before my whole family asserted that I should have a titanium ring, and I shouted in shock and cried and wasn't sure, because what is marriage? And are all relationships really doomed to failure like I've already convinced myself?
I told almost no one about our engagement for three months because it's a small valley and I still didn't want to hurt the other guy. I couldn't figure out how it wouldn't hurt. It turned out to be okay, ish, and we actually went for a big bike ride, the three of us, on my birthday last year and it wasn't that tense. I also kept the engagement a secret because I didn't see myself as a fiancee, and because I don't talk about relationships a lot or post about them on social media. That was a habit I picked up when I was younger, when I was doing some shady shit. And I have this stupid idea that love makes you weak or vulnerable.
After three years I'm still one hundred percent into this guy. He's just so great and I have friends who still regularly comment on that fact, which I love. So that's why we're getting married in September.
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| It's hilarious that nearly half of the photos of us that exist are candid, awkward laughing photos at special events. We don't take photos together. Ever. |
