Alternate Title: Why Wait vs. What’s the Rush

Slow and steady wins the race, right? But is it so much a race to the finish line when gaining the altar is the prize?

The Hare Says: Might as well do it now!

After all, if you know you want to spend the rest of your life together, why bother waiting 6, 9 or 12 months to get started. Let’s get down to business!

This was me when I was younger, and I blame that impetuosity mostly on the impatience of youth and the eagerness to get on with life, already. Many times I’ve looked back and the cautions to slow down, to take our time, and wish I’d listened–but for the real fact that had I not made those quick choices then, I wouldn’t be who or where I am now.

And, really, who among us could honestly say we would have heard–much less listened to–anyone implying we didn’t know exactly what we were doing?

The Tortoise Says: Marriage isn’t going anywhere, we’ll get there when we get there.

The aforementioned youthful impatience would call that sentiment lack of conviction, claim lukewarm feelings, and then shrug and go find something shiny to play with.

Now that I find myself on the turtle’s path this go ’round, I’d like to think it’s a product of age and that haste could easily be the product of insecurity as much as impatience. Apparently, though, the rabbit’s path isn’t just for the young, as I was recently reminded of, and what got me thinking down this road.

This past fall a friend of ours became enamored of a woman he’d been acquainted with, through mutual friends of theirs, for the past 2 years when a group trip abroad threw them much together. By early December they had decided to wed the following June. Two weeks later it had been moved up to the 30th of that month.

The day before the wedding I received a hold-off call (as I had offered to do their wedding cake), as the wedding was now an engagement party and the wedding was being postponed. Not for lack of affection, he assured me (and I believe him), but to allow time to work out some fiddly bits.

And it’s the fiddly bits that the turtle path is so well suited to manage. In their case it’s a matter of making sure the Catholic Church recognizes the marriage (she is a widower but he is divorced with annulment not really a viable option) for her to feel most comfortable. For the Road Trips, the turtle path allows us to save up for the sort of celebration we want to throw without putting undue stress on ourselves in the process.

But I now see that taking our time doesn’t mean we don’t love each other just as much–maybe even more!–or that we’re not sure of the life we want to have together. In fact, it’s not stopping us from living that life.

Are you a tortoise or a hare?