This post was originally written in March 2016.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for the outpouring of comments, questions and love from my Feb 14th post. I wrote this piece shortly after, and hitting publish simply didn't feel right until now.
Watch for a free document to come on how to design + create your relationship (for real, not just weird talk!)
Some background - prior to meeting Mike, I really didn't date for YEARS. Like I'm talking 8 or 9 years. My massage therapy career was busy - I travelled every 3 weeks, for 3 weeks, and during my time at home, I ran a very successful private practice. I'd meet guys, and if I knew right away, on an instinctual level that they weren't who I was looking for, there would be no second date.
Seriously, why waste my time, or his?
I hadn't been in a relationship for so long, that it became a conversation every time I visited my family. I swear my poor grandmother thought I was going to be a single spinster forever.
Mike and my partnership became clear very early on in our relationship. I worked a lot of evenings and would get home late (10pm some nights) He'd be up waiting for me, ready to watch Law + Order SVU. He'd always fall asleep before the end, and that didn't matter to me at all. The reality was, the effort was there.
I don't know how long we'd been dating (a year or more for sure) and we moved in together.
Later on that year, we bought a condo in downtown Toronto, and I realized it was time to leave my job for an opportunity at lululemon.
At the time lululemon was a growing company and I had goals to be there long term. Everyone began their time at the company working on the retail floor. I'd be leaving my well paying corporate job for $10/hour.
I remember talking to Mike about it and he said: " Do it. It's a long term thing and as long as you can pay your own bills (car + visa) I'll take care of the rest….What comes around goes around and you might have to do it for me someday."
Fast forward 3 years, and city or province unseen, Mike + I were on a plane to looking to buy a home in Vancouver. A new opportunity was coming my way with lululemon, and as divine timing works, Mike was being transferred within his company.
He'd never been to BC or Vancouver before, and he trusted me when I told him he'd love it. He moved out 2 months before me, and quickly adapted to the healthy, outdoorsy, laid-back lifestyle.
The home we purchased on that trip would become another critical piece of our partnership.
When it seemed circumstances with his job were changing, Mike's next goal was to open a Spinning studio. The spinning-only focus would be the first of it's kind in Vancouver. So, of course I said Go for it!
We sold our condo and rented so his goal of opening the studio would come to fruition. Partnership.
In all of these examples, we are choosing. Talking through (connecting) what it will look like, then aligning. Holding hands, and moving forward, come what may.
We're aligned. That means no opportunity to turn around and say "I told you so" if something doesn't work.
My job change, the move out West, opening the studio. It's all choice + part of the life we are creating. More importantly, it's the relationship we are creating. The good + the bad, the ease + the stress.
