Weddings--they're all romance right? Flowers, champagne, candles, and happily ever after, preferably occuring during a glowing sunset. Weddings are for the young...or are they?
I never thought getting married would make me feel old. I'm 25, I still feel like a teenager sometimes. I whine and throw tantrums--though maybe that's just the result of hanging out with high schoolers all day...But I'm reading the other posts, and in some sense, I've settled a lot more than the other wonderful women who post here. I have someone who is going to be a constant in my life and maybe that is what makes me feel old.
Is being settled a mark of adulthood? Or maturity? Or boredom? Or escape? Or...just another phase? I realize, with a month left til THE DAY, that I'm no longer going to have the freedom to have purple bedcovers, or my own closet space, or to go out whenever I want. There's another person to consult, a schedule to mesh with, and while I can't wait in some ways, in other ways I am grieving singlehood.
My dream for my 20s was to travel the world, to escape the Midwest. Well, I'm a teacher for the 3rd year in a row, I live in Columbus, and I'm marrying a man who still must complete 2 years of schooling...so there won't be any traveling for awhile. No glamour in that sense. But I am reveling in not being alone. This year has been tough but never lonely. I love that I now have someone to ride on airplanes with and someone to bake for and someone to tease, someone who peels my shrimp for me and who loves to drive (I really don't like driving!).
Can you tell my mind is back and forth and back and forth?
The latest wedding crisis revolves around 20 somethings. Oddly enough, we've gotten the most "rejections" on our invitations from 20 somethings (it does feel like a rejection, even if it's not! :-) ) Now why is it that our peers won't come to the wedding? For a few, it's monetary reasons. For others, I get the sense that it just wasn't that important to them, which strikes me as odd. Then it set me thinking. Maybe weddings aren't that important to 20 somethings. We've grown up with a divorce rate at 50% in this country. We get invited to several wedding every year. Our salaries, never high to begin with, are stretched. We can see the pictures online or watch the movie. If we can experience the wedding digitally, it's not like we really missed it, right? Or are we missing something?
Maybe in the end that is what connects this post. Feeling like something is missing--that glamorous job, or all that traveling, or those single nights, or my friends. Something that your 20s was supposed TO BE. Maybe these years drive us crazy because they are full of way too many expectations. (Cough cough Gary and the ten year plans) And we're looking backwards thinking they haven't been fulfilled and looking forward to a shifting landscape as we figure out who we are.
Bring on the champagne!
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2 comments:
Catherine, you expressed in words all of what I've been thinking about recently. Like you, I'm seemingly too young to be engaged but still getting married a year from now.
I'm honored and blessed to find someone that I can be with. But it always seems that the first question people ask me when they find out i'm engaged - is "wow how old are you?" To me, it first seemed offensive. But it's not, marriage is not in the consciousness of people our age - it doesn't seem like a relevant goal anymore.
I'm confused and still thinking through it all. I find myself convincing myself that I am in fact doing the right thing, at the right time, for me.
We'll see I guess!
Isn't it interesting to think of marriage as a goal? Is love a goal? Or is it something other than a goal? I just find it interesting that people list marriage as a goal. I'm not sure what to qualify it as. I think in some cases it is a goal and in others...I can't think of the word that I want. Making it a goal probably makes our generation want to put it off. We're not going to be defined by THAT, you know?
It's hard when I'm trying to think "is this best for me" when at the same time I'm thinking "is this best for him." Few and far between are the thoughts now that don't somehow include my fiance.
Marriage, or at least getting ready for it, has been a pressure-cooker that has forced me to figure out not only who I am on my own, but who I am with him. It's like a doozy of a double-dose of the 20s!! :-)
CONGRATULATIONS MEGHA!!!!!
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