Marriage.

Ok this is a very awkward post for me to write, but yah know what? I don't care. So here is the thing, I am a 21 year old single woman and it feels like everyone around me is getting engaged, married, or pregnant. I know it sounds so lame to say it straight out like that. That is why I only normally talk about this stuff with my closest friends. I am a very open person, but this is one thing that I lie about with most people. "Oh everyone's getting married, that's lame, I'm going to have adventures and love the world on my own, I don't need a husband." And it's true I don't, all I NEED is Jesus, but I think it's fairly natural to desire marriage. I don't really understand marriage. It's embarrassing to admit but I'm a very slow person. It takes me a very long time to understand things and love still confuses the potatoes out of me. Therefore, I am completely content with being single for the moment as I grow in my faith and my understanding of...well...everything. That part isn't a lie. However, being a human being, I get this worry that I'm doing things horribly wrong as I watch what feels like everyone I know go off and do all the normal things of getting a job, a husband, a house, and a baby while I still feel like a confused adolescent.

I remember laughing at my sister's wedding. My sister and my brother in law were crying and half of everyone assembled was crying too and I was standing in the back just chuckling to myself...my brother in-law's cousin gave me one odd look. The reason for my laughter was this: my sister is two years older than me, and in the past what my sister did (learn to read, learn to ride a bike, go to high-school, go to university) I usually did anywhere from 1-3 years later. Well two years later and I'm not even dating anyone let alone engaged or married and at the time I knew that would be the case and it wasn't so much that I was upset by that fact but just bewildered by how my sister could be so grown up with a husband and a real job and now a little baby growing in her belly and here I am and I still feel so young and lost and confused and it felt funny to me. It felt like my sister was still a little girl pretending to be a grown up. It reminded me of the one time when I was very young that I pretended to marry a cat. My sister pretended to be the minister and I carried the cat down the aisle (an ally-way beside my house) in a basket and then kissed him on the nose and then the cat jumped out of the basket and ran away. :P At my sister's wedding, I felt like there was no way she could be a real adult because I didn't feel anywhere close to being an adult so it felt like another game to me and I laughed.

Now I'm starting to realise that my sister isn't playing a game. This is legit, my friends and family are becoming grown ups and two years later I STILL feel like a child. It feels like everyone is growing up. My sister and her best friend from way back both got married in the past few years. Eight friends of mine from high school are engaged or married, and six friends of mine from university are engaged or married who were not engaged/married when I met them. When I write out the numbers like that it isn't really that many people, just 16, but it feels like a lot when it is all happening at the same time. It doesn't really bother me that this stuff isn't happening to me right now because I truly and actually am content with my life right now, that part of what I say to people isn't a lie. The lie is when I say I want this moment to last forever and I never want to live the 'normal' life because I hate boxes and I'm all for being unique. To be 100 % honest (and this is really hard for me in this area) I see nothing wrong with having a family. A family isn't a box, a family is a beautiful thing. I don't think people need to get married and have kids, but I also don't think there is anything wrong with doing so. The only reason I say that I don't want one is because I honestly am afraid that there is something wrong or different about me and that I will never have a family. I feel incapable of growing up and so I'm trying to cover up whatever is wrong with me and just say that I'm different and unique and I'm not going to grow up the same way as everyone else, which could very well be true, or perhaps I'm just going to grow up slower. I have absolutely no idea, but the point is this: I shouldn't have to lie about what goes on inside my mind. I shouldn't have to be ashamed either of my desire for a family or the fact that my life looks different from many of those around me. Both of these things are perfectly normal and natural and I'm not the only person experiencing them. This is why I'm writing this. Because I KNOW there are other folks like me out there. I feel really embarrassed to write this but I don't think I should have to and that's why I am doing it. I want you to know that you aren't alone.

I also think that it is ok to be different. Maybe I am never going to get married and that's fine too, and I honestly am content with not being married in this moment, in this moment I don't want to be married. I would like to be married in the future and for some strange reason I am ashamed of this desire, probably because I'm worried that I will never get married and that if that is the case it is somehow wrong of me to want to get married, but here's the thing, how am I supposed to know what is going to happen in the future? If I get married, sweet, if I don't, sweet. Either way there will be mountains and valleys and I will lean on God to get through them and learn how to let Him work through me wherever I am and whoever I'm with and whatever I'm doing. The future is the future and it will be ok one way or another or it won't and that's ok too. But for the moment, as happy as I am with the way things are I have desires for the future. And if my desires don't come to pass that is ok, I hope I will come to desire what I have. BUT I don't think I should have to be ashamed of having a specific desire for the future, I can't help it, its just a desire, and if it doesn't come to past it doesn't come to past who cares I'll cross that bridge later. I also don't think I should have to be ashamed of being different. Obviously I'm not going to be one of those people who marries super duper young, and you know what that's ok. Why should I be ashamed of this? That's just silly. I am who I am and you are who you are, we are all unique. It sounds lame like a kindergarten class but its really true.

Ok, well that's all I have to say. It was long I'm sorry. It was also really hard for me, and I'm really embarrassed to write about this, but I feel like it's good to be honest and just say it like it is because I know there are other folks out there thinking the same thoughts. If you think this was dumb and I'm the stupidest person you've ever met I really am sorry. I am a little stupid, I told you I'm still a dumb teenager basically, but I'm trying to grow up I swear.