I grew up!

A few months ago, I talked to a friend that I hadn't spoken to in months. Actually, we hadn't really spoken much in over a year. We spent some time talking about our professional lives, and then at some point he asked me how the ladies were treating me. And when I mentioned that my girlfriend and I were going strong, he seem shocked at the thought that I was in an ongoing long term relationship. That was one of those little moments in life where you can look at yourself and say "I guess I really have matured a little bit".



I spent most of high school objecting to marriage on philosophical grounds. This isn't unique. Every teenager reaches a point where he/she decides that you can't write a contract for love. Said teenager inevitably feels that this revelation is much deeper and more profound than it actually is and feels much more self-congratulatory than is really merited. My teenage self was very fond of what turns out to be startlingly bad poetry. I will share a piece of it with you.

Holiest union? Souls entwined?
last refuge of the lonely? blind leading the blind?
a practice that survived beyond its time
beware those treacherous vows that bind
strangers that might otherwise stray
for true lovers need no contract to stay
together to keep the emptiness away

8 years and a vastly expanded intellect haven given me the revelation that "the emptiness at bay" would have been infinitely more badass. Be that as it may, my professed stance on relationships and my total inability to talk to girls landed me tons of street cred with my fellow pseudo-intellectuals since I was able to say "I don't believe in girlfriends and, lo and behold, I've never had one. How's that for staying true to oneself?"

Fast forward to college. New and startling information comes to the fore regarding female anatomy. However, my viewpoint on dating and relationships was essentially unchanged. In fact, I'd say that at one point I found myself more jaded than ever. I was emphatic about never being in a relationship and definitely never a long distance relationship. Predictably, my first serious relationship began shortly after and was a long distance relationship. While it's hard to quantify emotional growth, I feel that I can say with certainty that I became much more mature as a result of that first relationship. Way, way, way more mature. As in, the only logical path was a conversion to Christianity, more mature. It seems silly, but yea, I eventually matured enough that one day I was leafing through my journal thinking "In this life or the next, there's going to be a price to pay for some of this stuff". Even then though, I was still pretty anti-marriage. Relationships made sense but an institution and contract for love didn't.

So I guess that it can't have been until after college that I matured enough to understand the concept behind marriage. It's actually pretty plainly stated in the basic vows most people use. They're vowing that, even after the lust that made marriage seem like such a cherry idea has faded, they'll stay together and have a life together. Not the stuff of Romeo and Juliet, but not too shabby either.