That's Pathetic Really...

Did you mean for that to be your outside your head voice? 

We all have people in our lives like that. The ones who just talk and you never really know what's going to fall out of their mouths. 

Last night before the Timbers' match the group of us that normally chat at games were well, chatting. There was a young couple there that was dressed for prom. We weren't sure if they were going to watch part of the match then go to prom or if they had decided to go to the game instead. Either way it was kind of cute to see. Which then got everyone talking about proms. Brent and I joked about still being in touch with our prom dates. Then how long we have been married. And how old we were when we got married. 

One of the group said, "Married at 18? Well when you think about it, that's pathetic really."

Now, I'm very used to him saying things that mean I have to use MY inside my head voice and watch my face. Let's just say my politics line up better with the Timbers' Army than they do the Key Bank Club crowd but Brent's bank account and my pampered ass are definitely Key Bank Club. So anyway...I'm used to running on a three second delay at games. And it was such a weird response. I mean, we get a lot of responses when people find out how long we've been married and a lot of them are really inappropriate, but that one was new. 

Pathetic. 

And I sort of get where I think he was coming from. That we missed out on a lot of things and relationships that other people have that they feel define them. The college or university dating. Those first grown up relationships. And we do realize that it's odd for people to marry at 18 and still be together. And I do not recommend it to people. We are the exception, not the rule. 

But still, pathetic? 

I smiled and said, "I don't know. I think it was brilliant. I saw what I wanted and locked it down quick." 

And then we moved on to other discussions about marriages. One of the other people in our group said they probably had the record for most marriages. And we were off on marriage lengths, numbers, kids, and the like. 

But Brent and I still made jokes to each other about our pathetic life choice.

But here's the thing that our friend without a good filter doesn't understand. We didn't miss out on all of those experiences because we got married so young. Okay, yeah, maybe the variety of sexual partners part, but that was our choice as well. Brent went into the military out of high school and I went to work. We didn't do the college route but we wouldn't have done that anyway. 

Or at least I wouldn't have. One of the reasons why it's so hard to break out of poverty is that you don't know how to work the levers in society. I had no idea how to even apply to college. Let alone that I should have done it end of junior year and beginning of senior. We had very little contact with guidance counselors in high school and if you didn't know what you were supposed to do, if your parents weren't there to guide you along, it was very easy to fall between the cracks. That would have been me. 

Instead of college roommates we made friends with the people I worked with in Florida and the people Brent was in school with in the Navy. Kids in their late teens and early 20s. We shared experiences and cheap beer. We took care of each other and hung out all the time. Our apartment was the main space for people to gather because we had off base housing as a young married couple. My workmates shared an apartment so we hung out there as well. Those were our dorm rooms. 

That was our college life. 

But instead of regular classes, Brent and his friends learned nuclear engineering and me and my friends sold electronics to sailors. 

We had the same sorts of experiences, we just had each other while we went through them. 

And we still have each other. And we have all of those memories and history together as well. 

As Brent put it this morning, "If the end goal of all of that experimenting and dating is to find a life partner, and if you find someone you click with early, there really isn't a point in continuing to look."

Pretty pathetic really if you think about it...

Or maybe not.