Fears

**WARNING: This is a REALLY long post!**
Less than 5 weeks until the wedding! It's getting so close, and I feel like there's still a lot to do, even though, in actuality, all the big stuff is already done. As I stand here at this point in my life, 5 weeks away from saying goodbye to my single life, several truths have started being manifest to me. The main one: I am scared to get married. Before I explain further, let me be quite clear in saying that this has nothing to do with Rulie. I love him so much, and I want to be with him forever. But getting married changes everything. I used to have such a hard time understanding couples who lived together for years without getting married. I thought it was so stupid - you've already been living together forever, and acting like a married couple. Why not just get married? Now that I am here though, I completely understand...

I have been eligibly single for almost 10 years. And this is always how I planned my life to be. Growing up, I was never that girl who just couldn't wait to be married. I was that girl who many church leaders worried about because they thought I was "rebellious." They would shake their heads in dismay or try to persuade me otherwise when I would claim things like, "I don't know if I really want to get married" or "IF I get married, I don't want to do so until later in my life, after I've established my career, lived by myself with a dog in New York City, and traveled all over the world." But I wasn't making claims like this to be rebellious. These statements were the way I honestly felt. I didn't have a desire to get married, and I didn't want to be a housewife. It's not that I think being a housewife is degrading - not at all! I have so much respect for housewives. It's just not what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to be the single, independent, exotic gypsy, traveling the world, seeing amazing things, and doing whatever else I wanted. I knew that I couldn't be that person once I got married. But that's the person I am! So, I figured - I'll just get married when I'm in my 30s. I have always understood the importance of getting married, as taught by my deeply-rooted religious beliefs, but I just didn't see the need in making it a priority. Before marriage happened, I wanted at least one college degree, a career, and an awesome independent life. I saw no reason I couldn't be the single independent woman early in life, and then later, get married and do all the "married woman stuff." I remember having one conversation with my bishop before I left town for my freshman year of college. He was asking me about all my plans, and I was telling him all about school, and what I wanted to do when I graduated college, etc., and then he said, "Well, what if you get married before then?" I kind of did a double-take, because his question caught me so off guard, and then I just simply said, "Oh I'm not getting married while I'm in school." He laughed and then said, "Well, what if it happens? You don't have control over when you fall in love." I proceeded to explain to him that I understood that, but that I just knew I wouldn't get married until I was at least out of school, but preferably in my 30s. (SIDENOTE - I didn't know this at the time, but have since come to realize that there is something inside me that can somewhat predict large events in my life. Not that I'm psychic - I don't believe in that - but maybe it's just my intuition, or something, but there have been SEVERAL things happen in my life that somehow, I just knew would happen long before they actually did. The marriage thing was one of them.) Anyway, luckily for me, if none of my church leaders knew how to handle my "rebellion," my parents did. My parents understood my desires, and knew that just because I wanted to get married later than most LDS people, didn't mean I wanted to shun the lifestyle that LDS people believe is so important. They encouraged me to live the life I wanted. They reinforced my belief that nothing was wrong with getting married later, after I've had time to accomplish all the dreams and goals I had set for myself. They allowed me to follow my thinking that: You have eternity to be married. Why get married so young? Once I started college, and realized how awesome single life was, I decided I didn't want to get married at all, EVER. Although I talked about marriage with one boyfriend, it wasn't until 2006, when I was 23 and dating "the wolf" that I truly started warming up to the idea of marriage again. If I'd married him, I wouldn't have been able to do ALL the things I wanted, but I would have had at least my basic degree, so the timing seemed pretty perfect (at the time). A blessing in disguise, that marriage never happened, and I was able to continue living the single independent life I had always wanted. But I can credit him with helping me get back that desire I had earlier in life to be married... some day.

After things ended with the wolf, I spent the next 3 years trying to get over him. It was a long, difficult, very lonely and mostly depressing 3 years. I did have one serious boyfriend after the wolf, who I got close to getting engaged to, but it didn't work out (his mom didn't like me because I was getting a master's degree), and I later realized he was merely a band-aid for the pain I still felt over the wolf.

One evening in August, 2008, I had an epiphany. I was in my room, reading, and suddenly a thought burst into my head so clearly: Maybe I'm not meant to get married in this life. After that initial thought, I had a million more come into my brain, simultaneously. I thought, I've been trying so hard to get married, and I always end up trying to force the issue, but what should I have been learning through all this? Maybe I need to quit trying so hard - maybe God has other plans for me, outside of marriage. Maybe all my previous marriage attempts have failed because God is trying to steer me in a different direction. Maybe I should stop trying so hard. As soon as this revelation/experience was over, I felt the most freeing feeling of my life. I felt like God had taken away all my depression over being single. I felt like I could do ANYTHING! And I really could do anything, because I wasn't tied down! It was such an incredible feeling and I rode that "high" for several days. I started seeing all the immense "pros" of being single.

Over the next year and a half, I went back and forth with being happy and content with my single self, but throughout that time, I was slowly but surely coming to accept what I saw as a FACT that I would not be given the opportunity to marry in this life. By 2010, I had come to a FULL, 100% acceptance that I would stay single. Now, many people (especially women in the church) will say that they're fine being single, and have accepted that fact, but when you start getting to know them a bit more, you come to realize that they've accepted their single life, but they're actually pretty bitter and resentful about it. I made it to the point where I had no ounce of bitterness about my situation at all. I realized I had a chance to live the dreams I've always wanted - I could have a career, live on my own, have a dog, and travel the world. And I did ALL of those things! Granted, I have not seen all of the world that I want to yet (and may not ever!), but I started traveling, and as soon as I graduated with my master's I got my dream job/career, moved to my own place, and got a dog. At that point in my life, life was perfect. I was sublimely happy living on my own, and doing my own thing, and I was happy that it would stay that way for the rest of my life...

Or, at least until February 2, 2011. Yes, that is when I received my first email from Rulie. We met online, and life changed abruptly. He is the one for me, and I love him tremendously, but at the same time, I was REALLY settled in to my single life! I was enjoying it so immensely before he became a part of it. So, now as I'm facing marriage, I know it means a lot is going to change. Life will become a lot more difficult now. Marriage means I no longer just have to live with myself. Now I have to live with someone else. Now I have to clean up after someone else, and now I don't only have to deal with times that I fail, but I also have to deal with times when my partner fails. And my failures won't just affect me now, but will also affect my partner, and vice-versa. Being married leaves room for a lot more trials and hardships. If it's just me, and I lose my job, or get cancer, or have to face the death of a loved one, it's just me I have to worry about. I can handle myself. But now I will have to worry about others and how things in my life will affect them. Marriage also means, eventually, having kids - a much larger fear of mine than any other fear I've ever had, and one worthy of an entirely separate blog post. But having kids means experiencing even MORE heartache and trials, because who knows what they're going to put me through! I can only imagine... My mom has said she always thought that if she could just get all her kids married in the temple, than her job would be done. She'd have a much easier life after that was accomplished. But she's actually had to face much more difficult and far worse trials with her kids AFTER they were married than while raising them. Once you're a mom, your work is really NEVER done. You never get to rest. Needless to say, life is SO much easier when faced alone.

But, that is not how God intended it. And perhaps that's actually a beautiful thing. Marriage is His way of getting us out of our selfish desires. We are able to grow more and learn more when we are not the only ones affected by our thoughts, desires, and actions. When other people are affected by us, it makes us more aware of others, and less selfish. So, I see the beauty of marriage, but it doesn't really make it less scary. I am scared of how my mistakes and shortcomings will affect my future family. I am scared of how their mistakes and shortcomings will affect me. I wish I didn't have to deal or put up with other people and risk getting hurt by them. But I want to be with Rulie forever. So I will go forward with faith in my preparations for marriage. I will marry him because I want that commitment, and I want him forever. And as I continue on in my new married life, one tiny (and sometimes, scary) faithful step at a time, and one small day at a time, I will hope and pray that all the pain and hardship and trials coming my way, now that I'm getting married, will be worth it.

I think they will be.