The Grass Isn't Greener, Actually

Everyone has a time in their life they view as a crossroad. Sometimes you can see it as it's happening, and you're able to choose one way or another. Other times you may not realize you're there until you look back, and see what a turning point it really was. This week, write about a time you view as a marker in your life; a distinct place where things changed, for better or worse. 

via

I was married for 8 years before I had my first child. Being married at the young age of 19, several of those first few years were tumultuous to say the least. 

I've always had the problem of thinking the grass is always greener on the other side. I always used to think everyone else had a better life than me. When I wasn't married, I felt painfully single. When I was married, I felt painfully trapped. Honestly, it was my age and immaturity. I wasn't ready for something as heavy as marriage, even if it was with "the one". 

Thankfully, since I was married to the one, fate seemed to keep us together despite my bouts of insanity. I just remember those years as being very confusing and conflicting for me. I was selfish and insecure. I wanted Luis for myself but I wanted to go and do what I wanted. I wanted to be hanging out at cool coffee shops with my single feminist college friends, going to political rallies and basically just trying to find myself somewhere...anywhere.

I'm not sure why I couldn't be married and do all of that. 

Eventually, I found myself standing at a crossroad. Everything had come to a head, and things couldn't keep going the way they had been. I had to make a choice, and quickly. Suddenly, I felt the real and painful possibility of losing my husband. There was not a single doubt that I wanted to fight for my marriage. I felt shaken to my core, like I'd been snapped out of the disillusioned, selfish spell I'd had myself under since I had been married.

A year later, we bought our first home and I became pregnant a few months afterwards. I was so in love with my husband. I cried so many times thinking about the first few years of our marriage that I wasted wishing I was somewhere else. It's definitely not that I never loved him, it was almost not about him at all. I had just been so busy trying to peer over the fence to see the other side that I didn't even notice what I had in my own yard. It was a huge life lesson for me.

So my biggest turning point thus far in my life...was choosing my marriage over the world. Choosing to focus all of my love and energy into my marriage and eventually my family. I don't bother looking over fences anymore. I know the worth and value of what I have, and I would never spend another day taking it for granted again.

Have you had a defining moment in your life, that turned you in a completely different direction?