God Bless This Mess(36)

Three months later, I met Austin.

I had written down all these things that I wanted in a partner, and Austin fit a lot of them.

We started hanging out, but before we even kissed I knew it was too soon. I told Austin it was too soon. “I like you, I do, but I’m still in love with somebody else,” I said.

Even though I had made the right decision about Brady, I still loved him, you know? Those feelings didn’t fade away the instant I broke it off. I had been in love with the boy for seven years—that was one-third of my life!

“I don’t care,” Austin said. “I want to pursue you.”

He was so sure of himself. There was no doubt. He wanted to pursue me, and only me. This wasn’t a game to him. He “chose” me. Isn’t that something every girl wants to hear? How could I say no?

So we started dating, and Austin taught me the way a girl should be treated. He was just so good to me, all the time, in every way.

I won’t get into every detail of our relationship. I’ll just say that Austin was exactly the kind of guy a girl ought to marry. He was trustworthy. Truly trustworthy. He was loving. He was kind. He was adventurous. We could talk forever. He made me belly-laugh like no one else could. He made me feel like the most important person in the room, no matter what room we were in. He came from a good family. He truly checked every box.

We dated for a year and a half, and I thought for sure this was it. Austin was never shy about wanting to marry me, and I honestly believed it would happen. He loved me, and I loved him. It was different from the way I loved Brady, but it was definitely love.

I kept telling myself, I’ll live on a farm in Alabama, and be a mom, and volunteer at our kids’ school, and life will be good!

That life sounded so good, actually. Contentment has always sounded like something that would be so nice to have. But a part of me thinks I was never supposed to have that life.

*

In college, I took a women’s studies course. The course filled an elective requirement, and someone told me it was a good online class to take, so I was all about it. But I was shocked when it hit me in so many ways. Being from the South, I was raised with the idea that being a feminist is something terrible. My brother and his friends would make fun of me and call me a feminist, as if that word were a slur. But once I took that class and did more research and reading on my own, I realized that a feminist isn’t somebody who “hates men.” It’s someone who believes in the value and worth of women, and who wants women to have the same rights as men.

When somebody calls me a feminist now, I’m like, “I one thousand percent am!” Of course I want women to have the same rights!

People will argue that men and women are different, and that’s fine. We all have different strengths. But women should not be oppressed in any way. And we are. We have been for a very long time.

After that women’s studies course, I even looked more closely at what the Bible has to say about the roles of men and women, and I think a lot of people in our society have misinterpreted what the Bible says. Especially in the South.

The Bible talks about how men should honor women like the church, and women should be there to serve a man, but what seems to get lost is that men and women are supposed to be equally serving each other. It’s not that the man is any more important than you are. If you’re both serving each other, then both of your needs are going to be met equally.

That is not how it’s been working, and I think that’s why we see such a strong women’s movement now, with more and more women taking leadership roles. It’s gotten to the point where women have been shut down, and shut down, and shut down, and now we’re like, “No!” It’s in our nature to want to be equally a part of this world. And if men were serving us like the church, then we wouldn’t have all these places where we aren’t allowed, or where we make less money than men. If we were living equally, our careers wouldn’t automatically take a back seat when children come into the picture, either. So many of the women I had seen in my life gave up their careers after having babies. Their lives changed completely as they became stay-at-home moms, or working moms who were still the first call for anything having to do with the kids. Meanwhile, their husbands’ lives didn’t really change too much. How is that fair?

If we were equal, I would not have been automatically thinking that I should go live wherever my husband lives. The assumption with Austin was that if we got married, we would live the simple life in Alabama. That wasn’t only his assumption, it was mine! I barely even considered asking Austin to move somewhere else to back me up while I pursued my own dreams. And I was still trying to figure out what those dreams were. I studied communications, thinking I might go into public relations. But to take a job in PR, I would probably have to move to a big city, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that. Austin worked as a contractor, and I had a serious knack for design and a love for beautiful homes. So I started thinking about a career in interior design. I had watched Fixer Upper on TV, and read The Magnolia Story, and I wanted to be the next Joanna Gaines. I even got a job at a high-end furnishings store just to learn a little bit more about the business. The hope was that I could find a career that could be pursued closer to home, a career that wouldn’t require me to leave Austin behind.

Even though I didn’t want to admit it at the time, I was doing it for a boy. But I think way deep down the idea of letting a husband take the lead as far as a career goes didn’t sit right with me—in part because right near the beginning of my relationship with Austin, I got a taste of a very different life.