Ramblings to a Future Wife, From Herself
Although there are a million other things I should be doing, I find myself staring at the computer needing to get out some creative frustration. I can no longer look at 50 shades of the same color and choose which one I like best, or worry about the correct spellings on the place cards. I’m tired of picturing the perfect honeymoon body while starving myself in-between running on the treadmill, and cowering at the sight of carbs. These are all things I should be worrying about as a bride-to-be, but I can’t bring myself to doing so. Maybe I was meant to be the eloping bride, or maybe I’m just being spoiled. But when everything is put into perspective the reality is that in just 25 days I will be receiving a new title: Wife.
When we are born we gain a lot of titles. Daughter, sister, brother, son. But it’s very rarely that we receive a new title that we will have for the rest of our lives. Scary? Yes. Exhilarating? Absolutely.
In 25 days I will be living with, and connected to my best friend, for the rest of my life. He’ll be the first face I see in the morning, and the last face I see at night. I’ll laugh with him, cry with him, fight with him, and make up with him. When I think about all this I think of how lucky I am to have found someone I want to do all this with. I think about how lucky I am to be out of a modernized dating scene that seems to be comprised of nothing but “likes”, and “swipes”, and “dms”. A society that has become one monotonous routine that proves the superficiality of a generation.
I think about how I was just a kid when I met him. How we were 18 skipping classes at the Junior College to spend all day hanging out, talking about our unrealistic futures. Just two weeks after we get married I will be starting Grad School, and yet I still feel like that 18-year-old with unrealistic portraits of how I see my life, the only difference is; he’s in every one, and he makes all of them seem possible. I think about how we’ve been through breakups, and diagnoses’, and deaths. I think about the person I am when I’m with him and how he makes me brave, and funny, and crazy.
I think about how we don’t have a dime, and if most people saw our first place they’d wince, and wonder how we’re going to make it work. Marriage has become this taboo, this institution that you can just walk away from if it’s too hard. The skeptics, and other twenty somethings ask me if I’m really ready to “give up” my twenties by getting married so young, and I’m human. I ask myself if I can make someone happy for forever, and vise versa. I ask myself how I know without a shadow of a doubt that I can be with one person for the rest of my life. The truth is, I don’t think there’s an answer to these questions, but I think there is a feeling that seems to make everything clearer. I wonder why today the title “Wife” has become sort-of, derogatory, all of a sudden you become boring, or codependent, or contingent. There are countless articles out there that read: Why Dating Doesn’t Work in Your Twenties, or Why You Should be Selfish in Your Twenties, and they all seem to be written by such fearless, independent women. However, I think they are all motivated by just that: fear.
When I close my eyes I see this new title. I see the aisle, I see the flowers, and the cathedral ceilings, and I see him. I see him and I walking into our 600 square foot apartment, I see us fixing the drywall, and hoping we can afford cable, and I think that’s the point. When I see the title “Wife” I don’t just see one person. I see one person, and her favorite person, forever. I always want to remember the way I feel right now thinking about this title, empowered, excited, bold. I’m writing this to you Kaeli, to remind you where two titles, “Wife & Husband”, can take you. Oh the places you’ll go when you’re together.
