The American Dream Tricked My Aspirations

What I value instead

Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash

I had been dating my High School boyfriend for five years, and a diamond ring loomed between us. While a proposal seemed exciting to a 22-year-old me, something felt wrong. It was everything I wanted–right? A young marriage before my peers, the prospect of a large family as we both had Catholic upbringings and he was one of eight siblings, and a great job…