The first quarter of 2020 took us by storm, right? For some it seemed to go on forever. For me, it seemed I blinked my eyes and it was the end of March; the world was an entirely differently place.
January 2nd is my birthday so I always start the year off in reflection. This year I decided to create this blog and then the flood gates of life opened up. I took some time to check in with myself. I am back and I am ready to fill you in on my whirlwind of Q1 2020.
In February, my boyfriend asked me to marry him and it honestly was the best day of my life. Like with any big decision there is always a lot of reflecting that goes into a decision like this. It is important to note I was not questioning who I was marrying. It was more how I was going to marry him and that there were some conversations that he and I needed to have prior to making this life commitment to one another. That is when I paused and began to check in with myself. I began thinking that I don’t have too much family and I didn’t really want a big wedding. I had lived my life with a small group of people and those people were the most important people to me. Those are the ones I wanted around me during the happiest moment in my life. My fiance´ wants the big traditional ceremony with all of his family in attendance whether they are close or not. I guess it’s more like a family reunion. I just want him happy and to have the wedding he always wanted and deserves, so I am fine with making this compromise. Upon soul searching I realized that wasn’t even my issue. My issue was I also have a big family but we are no longer in communication and when I was younger and dreamed of this day I had once pictured them there ….. unfortunately, they will not be there and that is ok. The other compromise I had to talk to my now fiance´ about was our relationship. You see I’ve known him since 2012 but in 2015 he ghosted me and we hadn’t fully discussed those events and what transpired when we found each other again in 2017. The fact that we didn’t have this conversation was bothering me so much it was affecting every decision I made. Also, each compromise was harder and harder and harder no matter how small the compromise was. It came to the point we had to have this conversation. One day while we were on vacation in Las Vegas we decided to stay in our room and talk, 100% real talk — no subjects were off limits and the other person had to listen. This helped our relationship tremendously and it helped us both realize what the other person was dealing with and going through. Best of all we are now committing to each to each other with no secrets or hidden feelings.
Enter March 2020. Life as I knew it would change. Those worries of the past few months would be minor compared to this pandemic, right?! When we got back from Vegas I had a fever, my body ached, and my nose was useless! My fiance´ took care of me and brought me food and medicine while staying at his place as to not also get sick and was still working. I was working from home as to not get anyone at my job sick. I was sick for the first week of March and by the time I got better I was at work for one day before we were all ordered to work from home and stay quarantined in our homes. My fiance´ worked for about two more weeks at his job before he too got the order to stay home. Before we knew it, all of NJ and NY were declared shelter states and everyone who was deemed nonessential were to stay inside.
By this time we missed not seeing each other and decided we should quarantine together. I call this time our “test marriage”. It’s the most time we’ve spent with one another since dating. We both agreed we should not live with each other before getting married. However, being quarantined is basically like living together. We go to bed seeing each other and we wake seeing each other. While we work, our work stations are facing each other and we are both cooking meals and washing dishes for each other. Sounds like a marriage right?! It was during this time I remembered a few gems I learned throughout my life. Recently, my mentor told me always take advice from those who have proven they know what they are talking about. With that being said years ago I told my cousin Shamee, “you know I think I will be a bad wife.” He looked at me and said, “why?” I said, “Well I don’t really care to do things for people when they can help themselves…. I don’t think I would cook and clean for someone or take out someone’s food for them….” He told me, “When it is the right person it’s not so much a chore but something you want to do FOR them. You want to do anything you can to help them to ease their day or give them something even if it’s a cup to tea it’s something you want to do rather than HAVING to do.” I can honestly say during this time in my life I now understand what he means. I’ve realized that I enjoy making meals and endless cups of tea. I will do anything to make his day easier because that is what his mere existence does for me.
So…. That has been my 1st Quarter. More to come in Q2 keep following!!