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  • Nikita Hays

The Promise

Updated: Aug 1, 2019

Over the last 15 years, I've built a life alongside my college sweetheart - Matthew. We started off as young lovers who had a dream at an unripened age of adulthood. Seriously. Matt and I were just crossing the threshold of being considered legal adults. As we are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime, I reminisce our beginning days.


I remember early 8AM morning class obligations, but I had arranged my priorities to spend every minute with him. Late-night phone conversations and drives around town. Sitting in a parked car with nothing to do but talk. As we discovered each other and our dreams, I found that we were very different people. Imagine an artsy, laissez-faire theatre major who loved wearing pajamas to the grocery store, dreamed about being an A-list actress one day walking the red carpet, and didn't have a care in world about what other people thought of her. Now pair that with a structured, routine-driven Political Science major who loved debating ideas and philosophy while monitoring his stock investments and was always dressed well just in case he were to run into the small-town mayor. By the way, he was 19 and had stock. Let's just say he had plans and was making them happen. Growing up in a small North Georgia town of 3,000 people, I didn't have much exposure to people outside of the South. Matthew was from the city - Albuquerque to be exact. My fascination for him increased every moment we spent together. I don't remember exactly when it was that I fell in love with his dream, but it happened. He wanted to see the world, and so did I.


Seeing the world during our late teen years was going to start with an adventure to New York City. But..... we never made it. The news of our unexpected pregnancy rocked our world. We cancelled our plans to NYC and began to save the money needed to raise our newborn. The stress of bringing a child into this world at 19-years old was overwhelming. I remember thinking that life was over before I turned twenty. The rest of my friends will be enjoying college, parties, careers, traveling and more. Me? I'll be working my minimum-wage job delivering pizzas hoping to make enough in tip money to fill my gas tank for the next evening's shift. Oh! And changing blowout diapers, washing spit-up blankets and cooking frugal dinners for my new family. The responsibilities were daunting, but we still had a dream.


Matthew, being the planner he is (and I thank God for giving me him), was not going to sit in self-commiseration and watch life pass by. Early in his college career, he had the opportunity to see some countries in Eastern Europe including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and more during a study-abroad program. The history of these countries

was captivating. Standing before buildings and ruins that were thousands of years old versus American history that was still in its infancy caused Matt to yearn for more adventure, more learning. One thing you have to know to understand Matt is that he is and will forever be a student. If he is not growing, he feels stale - complacent. Upon returning from his month-long program, he told me stories about his wild experiences - foods that we could never find in the southeastern states. Train rides from city to city all across eastern Europe. He promised to take me one day to his favorite city, Budapest. This promise is where it all began.






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