Growing Up Together

I wrote the post last week about Drew pushing my car & how I sometimes just take things for granted, but he's great. Do you remember that?

Well I've been thinking about it today & on top of all of those feelings, I think there is another big realization about us that has hit me. I'm pretty sure we're finally starting to get each other & how to be in a relationship.

Being together as long as we have is hard. It's that simple. It's really hard.

I truly believe that girls do mature quicker than boys and as you may have noticed, I matured even faster than that.

 Heck, during the summer when I was 8 years old, I woke up, dressed myself, made myself breakfast & rode my bike to the babysitter half a mile away. My parents decided that if I wanted to sleep in I could because I was that responsible at 8.

Drew and I have just been different in that way. He was never given a ton of responsibility, never had any life-changing issues like a parent being out of work or divorce. Nothing forced him to grow up early like it did me, which I think is a blessing. Yet, the maturity difference made things hard for us & it still does.

Since we've been together so long, people remember the time he put syrup & oatmeal on my car when we were 16. They remember when he hooked up with another girl on Spring Break sophomore year. They remember lots of things.

But the thing is? He just did stuff almost every high-school boy does. Boys are boys. Most people just don't date as long as we do & certainly not through high school so no one talks about what the boy did when he was 16.

My point is, even though it has taken nearly 6 years and lots of break-ups, not being allowed to see each other, fights and tear-filled nights, I think we're finally there. I think we finally understand each other.

He's starting to do things without me asking & I'm starting apologize for expecting perfection.

We tell each other things that we may not really want to hear and accept that sometimes we need to hear things we don't want to.

& most importantly, we're starting to understand what each other need & how we can do those things for each other.

Sure, it's taken a while, but the saying goes, "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger" and I think it's especially true in our case.