The past several days, my entire Facebook newsfeed has become plagued by status updates and new photo albums revolving around weddings and engagements. Just today, two new albums documenting “Our Engagement” went up within minutes of each other. By girls (women, at this point?) I knew fairly well in college, haven’t kept in touch with, but still am slightly shocked that they are the ones planning their weddings!
The mild surprise that accompanies these particular girls’ identities and what I remember of them from college is really not the point, though. Several people from my high school have also recently become engaged and I am attending two weddings in the next two months – one of which I am IN!
To back up slightly, 10 days ago was my 25th birthday. Despite the fact that I can still pass for about 19 years old, the idea that on paper I am one quarter of a CENTURY is kind of unnerving. I mean, it’s not…but it is. Twenty-five is so young and so old all at once (and yeah, I get that when I’m 30 or 45 or whatever, I’ll realize it was never “old”…bare with me here). On its own, it’s really just another birthday (and it was one of the best I’ve had). But combine the whole quarter-century bullshit with all these weddings and rest-of-our-lives vows and I’m suddenly like, what the fuck!
On one hand, I cannot even begin to fathom being at the stage in my life where I am ready to commit to someone totally and completely. To commit to sharing my life with someone – my space, my thoughts, my body, my nights, my meals – that’s HUGE. I honestly don’t understand how anyone at this point in life knows for certain that this is the right decision for the rest of their lives.
Maybe I’m a jaded child of divorce, maybe I’m envious that these other girls (women?) and guys (men?) have so much confidence in their love for one another that they are ready to go the distance and really commit. Seeing it plastered all over Facebook, though, unhinges a level of insecurity I didn’t know I had and provokes this weird, foreign gut-desire to have that kind of love, too.
And then I concentrate really, really hard and get my perspective back into place. I’m only, barely 25. Despite multiple chances at starting new relationships this past year, I’m single. Apparently because I want to be. Because when I’m painfully honest with myself, as gorgeous as the wedding photos are, as romantic as the flowers and cakes and candles and beaches and waves and diamonds are, I don’t want to be the girl in the pictures. Not yet, anyway.
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