I’ve never understood people who can use their imaginations. Doing so has never come naturally to me, even when I was little. In fact, my mom will sometimes tell me I didn’t play much at all when I was young. While other kids would get together and play dolls, or house, I would just sit it out. I liked reality, the current situation in front of me, even then.

So it makes sense that today, I’m not much of a daydreamer. I think about the future fleetingly, about how it will look as a whole, but I’ve never been one to dream about a proposal, a wedding, having children. Those things have just always seemed far away. They still do.

And sometimes, at age 26, it feels like I’m doing something wrong by not being consumed by those desires.

In the past few weeks, numerous people have asked if Brandon and I are already engaged. If we’re getting engaged. If we’ve thought about a wedding. If we have kids. If we want kids. If we know when we are going to have kids…and I get it. I’ve always been very public about my relationship. People know we’ve been together a long time. They know we have dogs and a house and a life together. The things they ask about are the logical next steps, so it’s not something that upsets me.

But the thing is, what people see isn’t everything. There’s a reason we are where we are. There’s a reason we’re moving at the pace we are. Relationships are never perfect, mine included. We hit some hard, hurtful spots this past winter, spots that left us raw. We’re still working through those.

Would we be engaged and planning a wedding if we hadn’t going through a rough patch? I have no idea. Would we be talking about kids? Again, no idea. I really, truly do not care where we could be or would be or even where we will be. I made that mistake before and I got in my own head. So right now, all I care about — all we care about — is where we are.

And where we are is so good. I can truly say that and mean it with my whole heart. We have no desire to wish it away. Where we are allows us to focus on each other, rather than focus on how we’ll pay for a wedding, or who we’ll invite, or if it’s time to have kids, or how many kids we should have. Some couples our age are at a point where they can and are thinking about those next steps. And that’s great. There’s time for all of that, but for us it’s just not right now.

Just because Brandon and I are moving slowly, or doing things backwards in some ways, doesn’t mean we’re not moving in the right direction. We are exactly where we both want to be right now. And where we want to be is in our little house in the country, with our pups, coming home to each other at the end of the day.

And that’s plenty for right now.

In fact, it’s everything.