The new year is upon us and resolutions abound. I try not to take these toooo seriously because I’m not so good at keeping them. Maybe that’s because I make goals like ‘will lose 55 pounds this year’ or ‘will run as fast and as long as Taylor’ or ‘will become a spy’ and somewhere in the first few weeks of the year, when the daily routines and my sanity kick in, these pledges lose their luster.
Last year I decided I was going to be less cynical about marriage. I’m not a very cynical person in general, and despite my own ups and downs in the world of love, I continue to be a hopeless romantic at the core. However when it comes to marriage, I am at a total loss imagining IT ever happening to ME. This is intensified by the fact that in my post-college years, there has been a snowball effect of sorts among all my friends as one by one they are getting engaged and taking trips down the aisle. On a case by case basis, I am nothing but completely happy for them and honored to be a part of their lives and their weddings. I’m humbled during the ceremonies, moved to tears by vows, in awe of the tangible feeling of happiness. I take to the dance floor and genuinely celebrate for my friends and their futures. And I’m inspired. But as a whole, the idea of marriage really freaks me out. I can’t wrap my head around it, even if its something I (think)eventually want for myself. I currently have 10 friends engaged (and I’m a bridesmaid in 2 of them!! So magic!) and every time I talk to any of these ladies and I hear the pure joy in their voices while we gab about all the details of the day, I am just plain excited, and only too happy to be a support in anyway I can. But in the moments when I take a panoramic view of my life and try to gage where I am and how I’m doing, I compare myself to my friends and think, did I miss a big ole boat somewhere or what? My peers, my equals, my sisters on the trail of life seem to be about 25 chapters ahead of me. For most of our lives we’ve been on the same track- school, jobs, silly boys, and then suddenly there was a fork in the road and they became real adults, and I remained 19 years old in the relationship department. Awesome! Really, as you can see, the problem here is with me and not my friends being too mature or marriage being too farfetched, but that’s beside the point.
Last year I was really committed to only saying hopeful things about the institution of marriage and to no longer waxing poetic about ‘what does it all mean’. I didn’t exactly fall off the resolution wagon but lets just say I had a few setbacks in the waxing poetic department. (AKA on New Years 09 I think my conversation starter with a cute boy I hardly knew was ‘So do you have any friends getting married? I have 10’. You can always count on me being suave!)
Over the holiday I had lunch with Bernidet. She’s getting married in spring 2010 to a really incredible guy and she is all-aglow. It is a really lovely thing to see a friend be all-aglow. She showed me her ring (and of course I asked to try it on), we talked all about everything involving the big day even though its over a year away and I couldn’t stop asking questions because I was just so thrilled for her. I also had coffee with Jo who basically had the proposal of my dreams (in London!!! Hint hint in case my future husband is reading this) and then I had a big, long phone date with Sara Joy who I’m pretty sure at one point in time shared my marriage-phobia. I’m telling you, my heart was bursting with elation for these girls, and I completely believe they are perfectly matched with their significant others. I talk to them and I fully believe in stardust and all its glory. Still, on New Years day when a dear friend suggested we sign up for match.com, my first reaction was, I don’t think I want to find that special someone in the next 6 months guaranteed! I’m still getting comfortable with myself, by myself. And it’s not always pretty. How can I expect someone else to have the patience to take on this beast? One step closer to the nunnery? One step closer to the shrink?
About 2 days ago I got a friend request on facebook from an old friend in college who I have not spoken with since we graduated. We’ll call her Betty. We lived on the same hall one year and were sorority sisters (this is for Dylan: go kappa!!!!) and I always thought she was a really cool girl but we just lost touch. While it was great to hear from her, what really made my night was the fact that she had married this guy who also lived on our hall sophomore year. As far as I know they didn’t date in college, and even though we did all know each other back then and even hung out in the same circles, it just made me laugh at the randomness, the smallness of the world that somewhere along the way they got hooked up and eventually hitched. It really made it seem less scary to me- like maybe you don’t have to go out and search deep into the far corners of the earth or make yourself perfect and then available to have everything be okay. Maybe you just meet someone or re-meet someone or finally see someone for the first time and it makes sense and it feels right and you just trust that. Of course, I probably could have learned this lesson from my close friends who I talk to on a regular basis, but knowing their stories and their journeys into engagement and then marriage, my perspective got a little cloudy. I don’t know Betty’s back story, I only have her facebook profile and the wedding pictures she posted and it’s not complicated, its just really sweet.
The tale of Betty from Facebook didn’t really change my life, but it did get me thinking. Or maybe it stopped me from thinking and just gave me a second to sit back and marvel at the fact that we are all growing up and doing different things and it’s all good. Everything we are all doing is good.
Maybe marriage isn’t so much a chapter or a milestone or a divider between the grown ups and the kids who can’t commit. It’s a choice, a declaration, a jubilation, and a leap of faith. These are things I understand.
I went ahead and made a resolution for this coming year: to be funnier! I don’t have a game plan lined up for achieving this goal, I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants here, but this is definitely a fun one to work with. And in the mean time, I’m focusing on the positive phrasing. I will keep it simple, take everything as it comes, and just be thankful for everyone I love and everyone they love and all the infinite potential for love I can’t even fathom. I’m certainly not scared of that.
