twenty years of marriage—a major breadcrumb
Who you choose to align your Authentic Life with is one of the most important decisions you will make, and it’s a decision most of us make way before we discover who we really are.
Today, Ang and I celebrate twenty years of being married. As I’ve reflected over those years, and the two and a half years of dating before, I see yet another breadcrumb in my life—an important and big one.
As with most things in life, so many things had to line up for Ang and I to meet—my choice to go to Franklin College to meet her friend with whom I’d hang out with and see pictures of Ang on her door room wall, to briefly meeting Ang our freshman year but never really saying much to her, to my friends and I running into Ang and our mutual friend on the 4th of July in downtown Indianapolis the summer before our senior year of college, to the fact that Ang went out that night despite not feeling good, Ang staying on my mind despite not working up the courage to talk to her when my friends and I ran into her and her friends again after the fireworks at a bar, and me deciding to send an email to our mutual friend to find out if Ang was dating anyone.
There are so many opportunities for none of those events to play out the way they did, yet they did.
Early on, when we were dating, we used to send each other thoughts—think completing each other’s sentences, except instead of completing a sentence, we’d send each other a thought. As crazy as it sounds, we would actually receive each other’s thoughts or words. I used to tell her we were on the same frequency or wavelength way before I knew about quantum physics or the law of attraction. “We’re the same!” is what we’d always say when we received each other’s thoughts; we knew we weren’t actually the same, but we definitely had a special connection.
I remember when I knew I would marry Ang, and it was early in our relationship.
We were on our way to Pennsylvania, I think for my cousin’s wedding, and we were leaving Franklin, Indiana, with my sister—I remember we were driving my sister’s Volkswagen because a six-hour trip in my Jeep would have been miserable. I stopped at the gas station to fill up before hitting the interstate, and I vividly remember walking in front of the car after I got out, seeing Ang talking to my sister, and having this feeling and thought hit me: she was who I was supposed to marry. As I write this, that feeling was the same feeling I had when “Authentic Life” was “whispered” to me by the Divine on the beach and Marco Island years ago—it was something that came out of nowhere but felt so right.
Back then, I wasn’t connected to the Divine the same way I am today, at least not consciously. But again, a breadcrumb showing that even before I knew what I know now, I was living it—intuition and the ability to receive guidance from a higher power. There was no questioning the feeling.
Our dating history confirms I received the message properly. In our twenty-two and a half years together, we have never broken up.
No “breaks”.
No time apart.
No testing the waters.
I hadn’t read The Alchemist back then, but I certainly would have used “Maktub” to describe our relationship.
Twenty years of marriage have seemed to fly by in a good way. We’ve built an incredible life together—three amazing boys, successful entrepreneurial endeavors, a house full of love, and living our lives in alignment with what we value the most. I consider my Self lucky to say that marriage hasn’t been hard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s been perfect and that we don’t get on each other’s nerves or don’t have disagreements, but I would never use “hard” to describe marriage, and I think this is because we are meant to be each other’s partners. The smooth ride of marriage serves as confirmation that the message I received back at the gas station was right.
And it’s not like we haven’t pursued life with vigor. We’ve both started businesses, which can be a test, but we’ve always supported each other and done what we needed to do to make sure we could pursue our visions.
We’ve both grown as individuals. This is the biggest test and confirmation that we were meant for each other. I look back at the version of my Self that Ang fell in love with, and while I see parts of him in the current version of my Self, I don’t think he would have ever imagined that he’d become interested in spirituality, venturing out into the world of the woo, a risk-taking entrepreneur, with a purpose of leading a revolution centered around The Authentic Life. I could see where my growth could have led the wrong partner to bounce because who I have become isn’t what they signed up for.
But not Ang.
She’s the biggest breadcrumb that I’m where I’m supposed to be. Her support. Her encouragement. Her trust. All important ingredients for me to realize my purpose and become the person I’m supposed to be today and who I will become in the future. Without her, I’m not writing these Daily Notes because I don’t evolve into this version of my Self.
So, as we celebrate our twentieth anniversary today, I wanted to share how finding the right partner is an important part of pursuing your Authentic Life. I also wanted to share an experience that could show others that marriage doesn’t have to be as hard or as much of a struggle as so many experience or believe it to be.
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
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