it's about time, o christian, it's about time

finally some good-hearted women are writing good books about being married that are doing wonders for my psyche. they're turning on the lights in the closet and exposing just what it feels like to be married, how much of a shock it is for women, how they handle the very real fear and probability of "losing oneself" in marriage etc etc.

i think this disconnect that all single women face, from the minute they are aware of what marriage is, has been a very real factor for why i'm still single. i remember planning my wedding in elementary school to my then-boyfriend who i never kissed. my bridesmaids had checked gingham dresses and hats. you can imagine what year that was. i've never done it since. the closest i've gotten is wondering how simply i could have the dress look and wondering just how wierd and shy i would feel on my wedding day. like i'm an imposter jumping into some fairytale who shouldn't be there. because i know it's all a fairy-tale. no one can give up their life and merge with another person (my worst nightmare) without having it all go awry. but that wasn't always my nightmare. my nightmare used to be being alone. now that i've done it long enough to see through the fairy-tale and have boyfriends leave me because of my urge-to-merge, i know how damaging that habit can be. somehow there is a middle ground where you keep yourself and still connect. although personally, i've never found it.

anyhow back to the fairy-tale. no intelligent woman can honestly believe it (who doesn't live in some serious denial). all you have to do is look at the statistics and the stunned look on some of your married friends faces and the forced-happy look on others' to tell it's all bs.

getting and being married is plain hard work and only now are women breaking their code of silence and speaking up about how it actually all works & how to survive it and even...make it wonderful.

god bless them. now maybe i can move toward getting married in an intelligent AND blissful fashion.

now what i have to figure out is, not should i MARRY this guy? but even harder, should i marry THIS guy. somebody please write a book for that.

i think i can't, i think i can't

deep within the heart of some divorcees kids, there lurks this nagging fear that we won't be able to stay married. so why try? it's like going on the roller coaster ride without a seatbelt; knowing you're more likely than not to be thrown from the moving train to your death. and if you have kids, taking them with you. voluntarily. why would anyone sign up for that?

yet you know there's that other very happy small percentage that just get marriage right and somehow you wonder: could you beat the odds?

in the midst of that questioning, you keep dating people who are like your parent. who left.

and some pretty wonderful men love you and you keep walking away.

so you read and read and try to figure out what the magic formula is that you need to know, that you are willing to bet the odds on. or that thing that you do that you can learn to stop doing to keep you from running again. or advice on fixing whatever it is that makes you not get along with the "right" people. but every book says something different. and it ends up right back where it began:

all about you.