Chris is Moving to Phoenix

On Thursday night I had dinner with a friend and in the first few moments of catching up, he tells me that he's engaged to be married. It wasn't that much of a surprise, because I knew he had a serious relationship. I just didn't know how serious it was, apparently. After congratulating him and getting details of the event, I asked him why he hadn't blogged about it yet. I mean, why wouldn't you blog about a major life moment like getting engaged? He explained that his blog is more often about work and didn't necessarily feel this kind of news would be appropriate. I think his readers would be thrilled to hear this kind of news on his blog and encouraged him to write about it. Whether or not he does, is completely up to him, which is why he'll appear anonymous here. (Even though I wish I could publicly tell him, "congratulations!" I'm satisfied that he knows I'm excited for him.)

As we walked through Tempe to chose a venue for dinner, conversation turned to me. Naturally, I shared various personal topics and caught my friend up on my life's events. Through that conversation, I realized that I'm a hypocrite. Only moments earlier, I was telling my friend that he should blog about his engagement because it was such a major life moment. Then I realized that I had failed to follow my own advice and blog about one of my own major life moments. Nothing quite like realizing one's failure to drive you to action. So here I am. I must confess I've put this off for entirely too long. I have something I want to announce.

Chris is moving to Phoenix to live with me.

I wish you could feel the excitement I have in my chest when I'm writing this. It's liberating and freeing to say it out loud. I can't help smiling.

As you probably know, Chris and I have been dating exclusively since April 2006. We've arranged our lives such that we can spend as much time together as is reasonable, considering the expense of traveling between cities. For the past year, we've been seeing each other approximately ever two weeks. We've gotten to know each other at depth and have seen the love between us grow. We've built relationships with each other's families. We've talked a lot about the future. We're happier together than apart. We plan on being together a very, very long time. It only makes sense that we take our relationship to the next step and live in the same location.

At the end of June, Chris will be moving in with me. While I'm scared and nervous, I'm also very excited and happy. I've never had a relationship like the relationship I have with Chris. He is a wonderful man, who treats me amazingly well. And while I'd love to go into all the details of what makes our relationship so wonderful, I don't think the web is necessarily the right medium. Chris has always been amazingly cool about my blog, even since the beginning, and I certainly don't want to embarrass him. So just trust me when I say he's wonderful. Really, really wonderful.

This announcement has been a long time in coming. It was early February that we committed to a move, but there were so many people in our lives that needed to be told first. Chris works for a small company and needed to make arrangements with them in order to avoid hurting the business. He gave four months notice, which in my opinion, is the most generous gift he could have given them. Then he told his parents. Then I had to tell my parents. But I didn't want to tell them over the phone so I waited until March when I was in Dallas. In between February and March, we'd both told a number of friends, but I wanted to wait to announce it online until the most important people in our lives heard it from us. I should have announced it in March, just after I told my parents, but then real life got in the way. I started a new job and got a new-to-me car and just got busy.

And admittedly, I got a little scared. I started focusing on all the things that were going to change in my life. I started obsessing about what I was going to lose, because I'm selfish. I've questioned our decision over and over. I asked why we couldn't just keep things the way they are. I argued that while it's amazingly expensive to have a relationship like ours, at least we're both blessed with jobs that allow us to continue it. Thank goodness, every time I've started talking about changing our minds, Chris has talked through it with me. He is amazingly strong and resolute. All my questioning and fear (and freaking out) hasn't phased him. He holds to the course. He reminds me that we'll never go any deeper in our relationship unless we spend more time together. The only way that can happen is if we live in the same city (or become millionaires but we know what's more realistic). He's reminded me how good our relationship really is. This step in our lives is a really, really good thing.

I'm convinced. I'm not convinced because Chris is talking me into it. I'm convinced because I just spent the weekend with him. It was the reminder that I needed. My relationship with Chris is the best thing in my life and I don't want to give it up. Instead, I want to invest in it and make it even better.

So, that's what we're going to do. To start, we're going to live together. We're going to work on our relationship. We're going to enjoy life together on a day to day basis. And I absolutely can't wait to see what the future holds for us, because I'm confident those are good, good things.

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