Marriage? No, thank you.

"People always fall in love with the most perfect aspects of each other’s personalities. Who wouldn’t? Anybody can love the most wonderful parts of another person. But that’s not the clever trick. The really clever trick is this: Can you accept the flaws? Can you look at your partner’s faults honestly and say, ‘I can work around that. I can make something out of it.’? Because the good stuff is always going to be there, and it’s always going to pretty and sparkly, but the crap underneath can ruin you." 

— Elizabeth Gilbert (Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage)

Everything happens for a reason in our lives. Everything happens exactly when it was meant to happen, down to the point, that you pick up the book you bought months ago, exactly when you were in the place, where the book was talking at you.  There are no 'accidents', at least that is what I believe in.

We end up studying what we end up, and even if we never ever worked a day in our chosen career, I bet you learnt something from those years at university. We move to places, where we are now and we are there, cause we were ought to be there. And we meet random people, cause every and each of them leave a mark in our lives.

So things happened and I met  Elizabeth Gilbert's book 'Committed', that I had been wanting to read for a year now [but I guess I wasn't in the emotional maturity and stability to do so].  It feel along with the time, when I have been hanging out with a group of married people. And just like 'healthy' organisms try to push out  or 'make healthy' the bacteria, my married friends in all their love and care for me, have been pointing out that I should get married, so that I can be much more included in their lives. [Like that is good enough, stand alone reason to commit for something for your entire life!]

Ever since I remember myself, I have wanted to be a mother. I have day dreamed, drawn pictures, dream maps... Me and many children around. Me and my child on a trip. Me and my child visiting my parents. Me sending my child to school... And nowhere in that picture I ever saw a man. He was in a very different picture. Me and my man. And I guess that just shows how rooted in my consistence is the fear of marriage, which is quite often associated with husband=father role. It's me looking for alternatives, trying to figure out how can it all work, so that I still stay me, but I have the two core characters in my life - my man and my child(ren).

And it's refreshing to read Gilbert's book and know that there are other people that feel like that too. It's refreshing to meet along  my travels people that feel that marriage is not the only alternative for happiness, and it's damn cool to meet people, who since centuries have been raised that it is the only way for happiness. They  make me challenge my choices, and by doing so, I become stronger in my arguments and more sure about my choice - marriage is not the ultimate goal for happiness!

Happy, healthy partnership, children, common dreams..all that is my happiness. I am happy and proud to be someones girl-friend, life partner, rather than a wife... Unfortunately, not only the role of stability and social status comes with it, but also sometimes the 'pity', that your life is all done and sorted. That you live by expectations and have a set role you have to fill... At least, that is how I sometimes feel about some women, when they state that they are so and so wives.

I once experienced, how personality, things that make me 'me', were taken away from me. How I lost my Ediitness. And I am not saying that it is what happens in marriages [but often it does, cause people expect to become one after the marriage. But they are not - they are still 2 separate people, with own pasts and futures, who have met in present and are sharing the road fwd], nor am I am pointing that it's what is going to happen in my marriage. I am simply saying that I have worked too hard to become Ediite, and have no intentions to become someone's wife.

And while the women of my family still often claim that they experienced their best years being married [even thou 90% of them are divorced now] and do once in a while ask me the magic question.. they also do not want me to make the same mistake and have a different life. No, not less happy, just less painful. Less delusional, a life where I also live for myself.

For God's sake - I still hope one day celebrate my love with that ONE MAN and promise to walk with him till the end of the world, carry his children and wake up next this one person every day for many, many years to come. It just doesn't mean he has to be my husband, I would much rather want him as my friend!

PS. And quite frankly speaking this my youth's idealism, might come running after me and bite me in the ass few years latter, as I walk down the aisle... but then again - NOTHING HAPPENS WITHOUT A REASON! :)