As mentioned in a previous post, I will be featuring stories from guest bloggers who have, in some way, been brave with their lives. This first contribution is from Jennifer Lopez. Her "happily ever after" story is my favorite kind. Enjoy!
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When
my dear friend and colleague, Kelly, asked me to write a guest blog
post about the courageous move I made 3 years ago (almost to the day!),
it took me a moment to realize what “move” she was referring to. Me?
Brave? What had I done? It wasn’t until she explained further that I
realized she meant my very literal move to Virginia. Kelly, raised in Hampton Roads, had never embarked on such a journey, and claimed to admire my brave move for love. I suppose I had never thought of it that way. You see, I had made a huge move once before. I grew up just south of Pittsburgh in a small town called South Park. (Yes…. Like the cartoon…) But after 18 wonderful years, I was ready to move south. I passed up the acceptance offer from my dad’s alma mater, Penn State University, and decided to attend Clemson University. I knew no one. I’d be almost 10 hours away from everyone I knew, actually, and back then I had no cell phone. (gasps!) So moving was really not a big deal to me. However, upon further thought, I realized I did, in fact, take a huge risk for love. Here’s my story:
I met my now husband in a rather unlikely place. It was February of 2008 and I was in town from South Carolina for a friend’s wedding. I had never been to Virginia Beach before. Little did I know I’d meet the love of my life. What’s worse, for those of you that know the area, is we met at Peabodys…. A disgusting tourist trap on “the block.” In hindsight, I’d likely attend Peabodys again only after having the full spectrum of preventative injections. However, that night, it was magical.
I won’t bore you with the details of how we met, but we began to make regular trips back and forth to see each other. After about six months, we decided to officially date, despite our 6 hour separation. My husband, an LCAC Deck Mechanic in the U.S. Navy, was facing a possible deployment the following year. Nonetheless, we discussed the prospect of me moving to Virginia Beach to be closer to him.
As a teacher, there’s really a small window in which I can change locations and expect to find an available position. So after about a year together, I began looking for teaching jobs in Hampton Roads. During that search, my husband found out he would have to deploy. It would be a seven month deployment, from May to December. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, that meant I’d be moving smack dab in the middle of his deployment. The idea of moving into his house without him there, once again not knowing a soul, was enough to make me nauseous. However, it was either suck it up, or wait yet another school year to be with the person I loved. I decided to continue the job search, and quickly found a teaching position with Norfolk Public Schools.
Saying goodbye to my now husband in May of 2009 was the hardest thing I had done to date. The hardest thing, that is, until I moved away from my home, job, and friends to a strange city where I knew no one and nothing. Thank God for GPS. I was lucky that a close friend of mine, also in the Navy, would return from a deployment not long after I moved. I also met some wonderful people at my job and through some of my husband’s friends. Still, the pain of waiting…and waiting…and waiting for him to come home was, at times, unbearable. Here I was, establishing my new life in the place that he called home, yet he wasn’t there.
Obviously, I survived. My husband came home in December of 2009, unscathed, and we began our life, finally, together. Here we are now, happily married, and never once do I doubt my decision to make the move for love. You see, in my opinion, love is always a leap of faith… sometimes the leap is just a little bit bigger.
{Jennifer and her husband, Tony}
You can find a link to Jen's blog, "A Hundred Days of Pinning" here.
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