It’s just like Jared Price to turn down an offered free flight in exchange for an extra night in a hotel just so I can tag along for a drive. Forget that said drive was fourteen hours long. 

The twenty-four-hour drive from Carrollton, GA to North Platte, NE is pushing it for us. Fourteen hours is nothing. 

Well, it used to be nothing. Now, it does take a minute to think about. 

And so, Jared is off doing Jared things and I am in a nice, roomy, eighth floor hotel room in Austin, Texas. 

I used to think about old-fashioned matchmakers, or people who met their spouses after being matched on their wedding day or shortly thereafter, and think, “I could never do that.”

And while I didn’t– Jared and I met on Lavalife in 2003– but Jared had been on dating websites for about three years and he had a specific set of search criteria on several sites that I fell into about two weeks after I created my own profile.

Early 2000’s dating websites sort of felt like their own versions of matchmakers, though, with their mysterious algorithms.

Jared seduced me on the phone in 2003, before we’d met in person, with talk of his time in Israel from the 1990s. He talked about visiting friends in Canada. He lived in Grinnell, Iowa, and he, with less than a week’s notice, made plans to come see me. 

And so, I knew: getting involved with Jared would mean adventure. 

In the early days, adventure meant picking him up at the airport in Atlanta after he’d hopped a 5 AM flight from Moline, Illinois on AirTran to Atlanta, to spend the weekend with me. 

Sometimes those visits ended us up in St. Simons for the visit.

Or it was me traveling: a late Thursday night flight to Moline or Des Moines or Omaha, depending on whether we were staying at Jared’s house in Grinnell or headed to some family gathering with his family in Nebraska. 

I’ve seen more of the United States because of knowing Jared Price than I ever thought possible before I met him in 2003. 

Jared appealed to me because of my perhaps naive ideas of adventure. I married him because I knew he’d be a stellar daddy: the only one of the men I dated I knew without any shred of doubt would be a good father. 

Marry the one who would be a good parent even if you never plan to have kids. It’s about emotional intelligence, trust and stability, and unselfishness and resilience, not strictly about raising a family.

Adventure doesn’t hurt. Chemistry gets deeper as time goes on. Trust is far more important than superficial chemistry, at first. I met Jared online and I knew I could trust him before I met him in person. I was right. 

In fact, I’d go farther to argue that initial sparks are built over time, not found magically on day one.

I’m pretty sure it’s not the norm for people to marry their spouse because of their parenting potential. Most people marry because of chemistry or because of proximity or because of any number of reasons unrelated to parenting. But I knew if he could be a good father, he’d be a good spouse, too. 

And, I was right about that, too. 

For much of the past eighteen years, our adventures have looked a little different: drives around the back roads of Carroll County, GA, or sometimes up through Haralson or down through Heard Counties. Or, in more recent years, a jaunt into Atlanta just because. Kids keep you close to home. 

The kids need us less these days though. And having reason to go to Grinnell, Iowa twice in two months, along with Austin, Texas now, reminds me:

The adventure never stopped. 

And, if I am completely honest: raising three boys that are exact mixes of both me and Jared in their own wildly unique ways, that has been an adventure, too.

We’re in an interesting season of marriage, now. In some ways, and not just because of the recent travel, it feels like we are dating all over again. 

Some people get the kids raised and realize they stayed together because of the kids.

We’re finding that the old us that fell in love in 2003 is still there: the us to hop in the car and go wherever; the us that holds hands walking down the street.

The us that frankly, doesn’t have to say much out loud to say what has to be said. Even if I am chatty a lot of the time. 

On our 20th anniversary trip to St. Simons, we came up on some sorority girls on Spring Break one of which snapped a candid photo of us they wanted to share. While we were exchanging contact information another girl asked what advice we would give after 20 years of marriage and I said, “Go to bed mad.” 

She kind of laughed and looked surprised at that statement, but I stand by it. I would go back to add the “marry someone who will be a good parent bit,” but oh well. It’s true: Go to bed mad and you’re much more likely to actually get some sleep when you need it. 

I’ve officially known of Jared Price for twenty-three years. Almost half my lifetime. A week and four days from now is the twenty-third anniversary of the day I picked him up at the Atlanta airport for the first time. I can still see him coming up the escalator, beyond the barrier. 

Our very meeting in person was an adventure in itself, come to think of it. 

So, this week it is Austin. In two weeks, it will be Grinnell again. Who knows yet about the holidays; there are several options.

So. In my case, I married the man who offered adventure and a solid, steady partnership. 

And it is 100% okay that sometimes these days, adventure means grabbing a spoon from the kitchen and heading off to Ingles to pick up a pint of ice cream apiece and sitting in the Ingles parking lot, people-watching. Or, heading off to Aldi for some chocolate, to do the same thing.