Dread Pirate
There's a new mindset when you're attempting to establish a life alone—one that is in flux, and unstable (not necessarily in a bad way)—it's slightly oppressive.
And if you think back to all of the relationships you have ever been in that maybe got strung out a bit longer than either party benefited from, almost all of the time the reason for the delay in separation, is the fear of reestablishing yourself as a sole entity. It’s not easy.
It can be difficult to find self-worth in this world, and even more so after a failed relationship—because let’s be honest, as much as we’d like to think that we’re different, most relationships don’t conclude in a very admirable way. At least not as we’re young, and a little more than reckless.
Here, now, there are a lot of things that are constantly buzzing around in my head about "my next thing" or "where I'm going to be" and the truth is; none of that really fucking matters. Me, the man with no childhood home, should not be resting his sanity or happiness on attempting to grasp something that I do not desire, nor do I have a beneficial understanding of.
What am I getting at? What's all this strife and hustle for?
... well fuck, I don't know. I was sort of relying on you for an answer to that one.
Part of the problem with our decisions in life is that we’re playing to a larger audience than we need to. An audience not actually made up of human beings.
My stance on marriage hasn't changed much over the years, but has grown clearer as time moves on. It’s not something that has ever appealed to me. And I don’t intend to discourage those that believe in the structure of it. But I would love to articulate how I feel without alienating those readers, so I’m going to give it a shot.
A lot of it has to do with time-frames. In a five year span, if I perform the same thing over and over again, it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll remember what that thing was years down the road. But the one thing that was different, on that slightly sweet-aired autumn afternoon, that I’ll never forget.
“I've always found large impact in tiny spaces. I don't remember "that year I spent at school" or "my favorite job ever", instead I recall those few hours, sitting outside with classmates, joking about the trials of life we were all running blindly through. I remember the coworker that made me laugh so hard I nearly stopped breathing.” I mentioned this in a previous article.
And we fight for these things that disintegrate into which we cannot grasp or retain.
*take all of this as you will, and note that this is pouring from the mouth of a notorious cynic*
Regardless of my general cynicism, I continue to learn, and be surprised by things. Much like this recent clarification on what moments matter.
But I suppose that’s not necessarily a gold standard that will persist in my world for eternity. I’ve been told that I “sound very sure” of things that I’m not actually sure on, and I think it has to do with my immediate conviction versus my history in adapting to new found knowledge or the changing of the tides. What I say, is usually what I believe, when I say it. As I'm sure is the way for most people that come across so surely.
And as a human being that isn't a firm believer in religious sects, marriage just seemed like an outdated souvenir of life that can live or die with or without real love.
A friend recently said that an engagement, or marriage "means so little in a relationship" and they meant it. A past version of me wouldn't have argued such a stance.
And I laugh. Because no matter how many times I've attempted to tell this story out loud to my friends or family, it has always been the same. I’m a rehearsed play of dispelling and non-belief. A passionate atheist, and a neglectful professor of reality, nearly anyone who has ever met me, wouldn't believe what I’m about to write…
To go even further into the ridiculous section of this banquet hall, nearly everything I’m about to say might be seen as complete contradictions to all the ideas I wrote about in this very article above …
I want to get married.
But not for the sake of jumping through any religious bonds, or ceremonial family obligations, or even governmental benefits of the paperwork. I want to get married because I have an endlessly burning desire to ensure someone specific -- that I intend to do all I can for, and support them until my bones turn to jelly, and all of my faculties have rotted from this plain of existence – knows without a shadow of a doubt that I’m here. For them.
I want to get married because when I look at her, I want the easiest way to explain how I feel. The furrow in her brow and the twist in her lip. I desperately need an understandable cadence of verbiage to tell the pedestrians just how she makes me feel. Marriage would be a fantastic start. Just being able to introduce her as my wife would, at the very least, begin in assisting in that knowledge.
Or maybe it wouldn't …
What if we've inundated the idea of what marriage is supposed to mean. Standardized it to the point of bastardization? It was, at one point, so un-compelling to me, but touted as a “natural step” in the progression of a relationship. It’s everywhere. Even in cultures that remove the choice of the individuals involved.
Maybe I don’t even have the right to complain about the complexities that I feel regarding the subject. Especially given that this world we live in remains a place where not everyone can legally wed the ones that they love.
It’s ironic that so many religions (and ignorant people) believe that same sex marriage will ruin the sanctity of the act, yet their perverted overuse makes me question whether or not it even means the same things that they claim it to. In reality, the only thing that has ruined marriage, is those that used it as a solution, or an inevitable stage, and not because they wanted to wake beside the single being that makes them feel the best. Or find wonderful joy in the idea of using the titles husband, or wife to describe their significant (that being the key word here) other.
The ease of information and understanding that makes me want to partake in the action of getting married, could be invalidated by the patterns of mankind. As is a lot of life choices.
.
.
I could watch her make things, all day. It would very much be a wonderful way to spend my days. Here, now, we both sit in the same room and we just are one another next to each other. It’s a beautiful, clean, and wonderful experience.
Often, I am frozen by her silhouette. The way that her copper hair twirls down parallel to her cheeks and onto her chest. The absolute passion she puts into every little thing she makes, and how she disappears into her project.
.
.
I want a matching set of jewelry that helps portrait that she is the one for me. That she keeps the skin on my finger from peeling and falling into another hole of unknown consequences. Who knows where we will go, or how we will get there, but I’m buying two tickets and can spend the whole trip listening to her speak and starring into her eyes.
She makes me smile. With my whole body.
