I was especially thinking of this on my business trip to North Carolina this week. I lived there once. I was 24 years old, a baby really, and just married to Mike. We were married all of two years before things fell entirely apart, and divorced a year after that. He was a good guy, we were a "nice couple" on the surface, and we were wildly excited about our life together at the beginning. But both of us rushed it. We'd known each other for several years during college, we were great communicators, and we thought we could work through anything, at least intellectually. We had nice, supportive families. They encouraged us to go for our dreams. And when that dream included marrying one another before we were even a year into our student loan payments, they probably scratched their heads but smiled and supported us. We were both headstrong, determined to get a jump-start on life, and figured that doing it together was as good an idea as any. Why was I in such a hurry?
I'm not going to over-analyze it here, but I know the ENTIRE marriage and divorce process could have been avoided if I'd realized the timing wasn't right. If I'd just sssslllllloooooooowweedd ddooowwwwwwnn. Because we were a terrible match. Really, patently wrong for each other. And I would have seen that if I had taken an extra few months - and better yet years - of dating before deciding to jump into the "forever" idea. A bit more time would have made it clear to others - such as my best friends and my family - that they should counsel me against this rushed decision. I simply didn't give it enough time. Egads, that was a bad one.
It's been really clear to me over the past few years that when I take a deep breath, step back and slow down, I make much better decisions. It's mainly when I'm in a hurry, or I try to hurry others, that I get into trouble. And I envy those who seem to have a knack for getting the timing right.
My little brother, Chuck, is the perfect example. He takes things nice and easy, but he is still incredibly productive. He acts after thinking, after taking some time to really chill out and sit with the options for a while. He's always worked in the outdoors; he loves nature and he has a lot of skills. For the past few seasons he's been the lead sawyer on a Hotshot crew - you know, the guys who go into wildland and forest fires and physically create the fire lines we hear about on the news. (Yep, that's my baby brother. Such a stud! But I digress...)
Chuck earned a bunch of money through really hard work - and investments he made during the emotionally wrenching experience taking care of our very ill cousin - and he took time to decide what he wanted to do "next." The cool thing is that the easy (and quick!) decision would have been to just go back to Hotshotin' because everyone on his crew, and probably the entire U.S. Forest Service, loves him. But he waited until the time was right, and set himself up to go to photography school. I am so ridiculously proud of him. It's amazing that he made this choice. And now he will get to combine his amazing talents and love of nature in a new way. I can't wait to see what comes out of this. His patience and willingness to wait until the time was right is truly inspiring, and a very Sweet thing.
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