Courtship, Part 8: Courtship
Hey look, it’s the name of the series!
Dylan visited for a full week in early April of 2014, arriving on one Sunday and leaving the next. I believe it was that Thursday that dad informed us that we were officially allowed to enter into a courtship together. But that entire week was something of a frenzied blur, and for much of the visit, it felt like we barely had a moment together.
During my childhood, family worship had been a daily 20-30 minute time of singing hymns and learning about the Bible. When my dad started getting into sovereign citizen conspiracies and stopped paying his mortgage, lengthy prayers and discussions about those topics meant that we were frequently in the room for well over an hour. But the week Dylan was there, our already-lengthy devotions ballooned into two and three hour-long meetings, and afterwards Dad would demand a private audience with Dylan in closed-room interrogations conversations which took up even more time.
Despite the extended conversations, Dad’s attitude towards Dylan became more and more positive as the week went by. He touched base with me a handful of times with a variety of complimentary things to say about Dylan, and generally seemed enthused to be able to welcome Dylan into our home. The lengthy monologues, rather than being intended to scare Dylan off, seemed to rather be exuberance as Dad kept thinking of more that he wanted to share with Dylan.
My siblings were eager to get to know Dylan, as well. During his every spare moment they demanded that he play chess or tag or other games with them. The younger ones, oblivious to much of the unspoken tension, were simply eager to make a new friend. Meanwhile, the older ones seemed to feel responsibility for helping to vet Dylan. I couldn’t fault them for any of it, but sometimes felt as though I was interacting with him less than everyone else in the family.
In the midst of all of this there was a frenzied whirlwind of excursions and outings and family activities. I’d requested to go bowling on my previous birthday (eleven months earlier), a request which had been put off with varied excuses ever since: but now, suddenly, we were bowling and “celebrating my birthday” with Dylan. We went to Huntsville and visited a WWII museum there. On the way back, we ate at a Mexican restaurant (my dad tried to insist that this should be recalled in the future as our anniversary of sorts.) On another excursion, we hiked trails and explored a waterfall at Oak Mountain state park, then perused the shelves of 2nd & Charles (where Dylan bought me a copy of Bastiat’s The Law.)
Throughout these family trips, Dad still managed to monopolize most of the conversations. He’d use the car rides to and from these areas to share his opinions and ideas and life story. It was at this point that he started to share his more objectionable life choices with Dylan – from his sovereign citizen schemes, to his claims of being prophetically responsible for the 9/11 attack. I was grateful that Dylan didn’t try to push back against these statements, and doubly thankful to pick up from his facial expressions that he was rather skeptical of the narrative being told.
While I was heartened by my family’s acceptance of Dylan, I was also growing increasingly frustrated at the ongoing dynamic. It was an odd feeling: for the first time ever, Dylan and I were in the same physical space, meeting one another in person, officially allowed to be in a Courtship. But while I’d known to expect chaperoning and oversight while we were together, it was jarring to realize that my ability to spend any quality time with Dylan (without eight other family members also being present) didn’t appear to be a priority in my parents’ eyes – even after the official permission to court had been granted.
It wasn’t until Saturday evening that we were given time to speak one-on-one, allowed to visit the Birmingham library’s coffee shop in relative privacy while the rest of my family was elsewhere in the library. Finally being able to relax and just enjoy talking, in person, while casting surreptitious fond glances at one another, was a welcome respite.
Now that we were finally able to get a word in edgewise, the conversation was effortless. We were still careful to toe the line and avoid all of the subjects that weren’t supposed to be addressed by us, but despite that, it felt like we were still on the same page, an unspoken understanding between us. It made it seem like all of the hassle had been worth it. Perhaps, from here on out, all things would be looking up.
And then, far too soon, the week was over and Dylan was driving back to Kansas.
Official permission to court implied that my parents had now given us their blessing (and their permission) to have somewhat more in-depth discussions and personal conversations. But the actual parameters we were meant to be following were still rather murky and undefined. A list of courtship-approved conversation topics had been given to both of us during Dylan’s visit, but the only conversations that sprouted from this list were us making fun of the suggested topics (based on the snarky comments I still have access to, one of the suggestions apparently included learning each other's' favorite colors.)
But the fact that my dad had so overreacted to our earlier messages – had acted as though “I'll look forward to talking to you later.” was a scandalous display of affection – ended up causing both of us to feel that the painstaking rule-following route was pointless. If we were going to encounter negative consequences no matter what we did, we may as well (finally) speak frankly to one another about how we felt. And so with much trepidation and a fair amount of butterflies, our first I love yous were exchanged.
In (sometimes cryptic) messages we also dared to begin to express our frustration at my parents’ attempt to end our relationship back in December. We both agreed that while our desire was to keep them happy and to fully submit to their dictates if at all possible, we were also determined to not let them come between us again in the future.
Not long after Dylan’s visit, we set up arrangements for myself (plus a sibling, for chaperoning purposes) to fly out to Kansas and meet Dylan’s family that same month. My parents weren’t particularly enthused about this choice, especially as it was made without their oversight, but admitted that it was reasonable that his family would want to meet me. I think they would have preferred to have our entire family drive out there to meetup, but I already knew that they didn’t have the funds to do that–and with our home being foreclosed they were skittish about leaving it for extended amounts of time. Their unease was palpable, but with Dylan purchasing the tickets and paying for our lodging as well, they permitted the trip to happen.
(At some point around this time, I was also allowed to get my own minute phone and Dylan and I started texting one another. I don’t have an exact record of when this was, since those conversations are long gone, but I do think that my leaving the state was partially a reason for this being allowed.)
The visit to Kansas wasn’t a particularly lengthy one: we flew to Kansas on a Friday and came back on Monday. Nevertheless, Dylan and I had much more opportunity to speak in-depth during this visit than in the previous one. My single sibling chaperone, despite their conscientious watchfulness, still allowed for far more conversation and interaction than being constantly surrounded by eight other family members did.
Dylan’s family was warm and welcoming, while also allowing us a measure of privacy so that we could have conversations out-of-earshot. At one point, they distracted my sibling while Dylan and I watched The Sound of Music in an adjoining room: or rather, the movie played while we spoke in hushed tones about our plans and contingency plans for the future.
We were both in agreement of the fact that we wanted to get married as soon as possible. The main question was one of making sure we followed other peoples’ unspoken rules so as to avoid conflict or strife, if possible. We spoke of potential timelines and of what was expected from us. We reaffirmed our commitment to one another regardless of parental actions, but also our commitment to do the right thing and do our best to follow along with my parents for as long as it was possible to do so. We also finally talked through, in depth, our own experiences of the “so it is over” declaration from December, sharing our separate-but-similar viewpoints and the conclusions that had been drawn from it.
Flying back to Alabama was one of the more difficult things I had ever done. Not only was saying goodbye to Dylan an awful feeling: the return to my parents’ control felt ominous. There had been a level of freedom experienced in Kansas that gave me momentary insight to how stifling it was to be in my parents’ home, and I was surprised by how much I didn’t look forward to returning.
All through the flight home, there was a sense of unease, of foreboding in my mind – what if I’d missed my opportunity to leave?