Noah's Ark

I am gone on a retreat/vacation in the middle of nowhere, Massachusetts. While I’m gone, I’m sharing posts from the archives.

 

This post was originally posted July 22, 2008.

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This weekend, I spent some time with my friends whom I’ve known since 8th grade. We’re an eclectic group – we might not have as much in common as we once did, but we’ve stayed close nonetheless. We hold jobs as teachers, med students, business women, and volunteers. We differ in our political and religious views, we hold different values, and we can be very different people. We are liberal, conservative, idealistic, and cynical. Yet, somehow, when I start talking with one of them, I fall into a natural rhythm of conversation. We have our friendship in common and sometimes that’s enough. The familiarity of another can be comforting.While with my friends, I realized something: we’re undeniably pairing off.

In that little group of five girls, my closest friends growing up, two of us are married, two are engaged, and one is single. Of my five college roommates, one is married and two are engaged. (AND ONE HAS A BABY. Which probably freaks me out most of all. After she had her baby, I started babbling: “A baby! A freaking baaaybeee! What a commitment! A baby!! She’s MY AGE! MY AGE, Mike!!”)

Looking at it, it seems a little crazy – marriage! So big! Big deal! To me, it’s just normal that I have Mike – we live together and hang out and are married. It’s natural and right. I have fun with him, I love him, and we work well together. It doesn’t make me feel like old and settled down, just like I have a buddy who likes to do the same things I do. (And sometimes bicker with…or okay, pick fights with. You’ll have that.)

It got me thinking though: if I were single and all my friends were getting married, I might feel odd. I know being single in a group that seems to be “settling down” can be difficult. I recognize the loneliness and feelings of isolation being single can bring. Some even express a sense of desperation: “I’m 25! And single! I’ll never find annnyyyonnne!” {If I were single, I’d probably be the same way. Heck, I don’t have a real career and I get all anxious that I need to decide RIGHT NOW or I’m bound to be penniless and unsuccessful my whole life and my parents will be ashamed and my siblings will all be so much more successful than me and I’ll be homeless. I’m a bit dramatic like that sometimes.}

I wish I could say one thing to those 20-somethings who aren’t married: If getting married is your ultimate life goal, you will be dissapointed.

I wish someone had told me this.

{Sure, it’s easy for the married lady to say that! She’s already found her Mr. Right! However, this is not like when I was a 100 lb high schooler telling my friend dieting was stupid. No, I am much older and less insensitive now. I hope.}Marriage is a beautiful, wonderful thing. It’s fun and an adventure. But, it’s also freakin’ hard. It’s so much work. It makes me a little wistful when people okay, women declare complete and utter unhappiness at not being married yet.

I wish I had known that marriage isn’t a magic pill. It didn’t make my insecurities go away, it didn’t make me any less likely to feel sad, it didn’t make me have more friends, and it didn’t solve all my problems. I wish I had known not to spend my time hoping that I’d get married, hoping he’d ask me, and thinking marriage would fulfill me completely.

That’s not to say that it isn’t fulfilling and wonderful – but my life didn’t stop with marriage. And I think I foolishly thought it’d get easier after I said, “I do.” The only thing that’s gotten easier is never having to say goodbye for more than a few days. I delightedly bid farewell to our awful long distance relationship.

I hope this doesn’t come off as some 23-year-old spouting off her “wisdom” and unwanted “assvice” or for me to seem ungrateful for this gift I’ve been given. I’m unexplicably thankful for Mike. Marriage has made me so happy, but all my happiness cannot rest in it alone.