So after long brain-numbing hours of staying couch potatoed, what have I learned? That (as if I needed more reinforcement or insight from sources other than the various anecdotes, excerpts, observations, and personal inferences gleaned thereby, of close friends and families) the institution of marriage, and its inevitable byproduct, family, demands a lot of work. It's just stupid to walk in without being fully briefed and prepared. Love may be the best, and probably the only morally correct, reason to get in, but to stay, it's far from enough. Along the way the couple has to overcome, or at least maneuver through, the pitfalls of infidelity, the traps of responsibilities, the dwindling supply of romantic moments, the burden of child support, the unrelentless bombardment of bills, and of course, the inescapable clashes wrought forth by disagreements. How many have taken misstep after misstep, or even just a single false turn, and found their marriages torn and irredeemable. Even if each is the source of the other's utter happiness, the cost to keep that warm glow can be, mildly put, stressing. It's just not right to have the wrong expectations. It's moronic to do it on impulse.
I do hope, someday, to be married and nurture my own family. I just feel like I'm now as near to that day as I am to the north pole. I can't place my opinions nor thoughts on my (still twenty-something) friends and relatives who have passed that day. Do I envy them for being brave enough, or do I just marvel at their seeming naivete? Am I proud that I haven't been snapped by that cage, or unfortunate that I haven't that pinnacle of human social relationships? Granted that by normal standards I am deemed still 'young enough' to be single, but I'm somewhat startled whenever I learn that a friend has been married or even engaged, like twice tonight. I feel we kids are still 'too young' to enter that most difficult of journeys. But then I'm not simply just referring to age.
Labels: semi-serious, tv
