Day 310 - Marriage

So while I have been trying to stay away from blogging about this, I've had enough divine reminders, conversations, tweets, and everything else just today to make me realize that I need to go ahead and blog about it.  You may ask why I've been avoiding it, and there are a few reasons for this.  For one thing, I've never been married, so my vantage point for this state of being is slightly incomplete.  I mean, my longest romantic relationship was about 9 months, and there was a 3 month break in the middle of that, so I wonder about my own ability to do the "forever" thing.  There's also the religious/political battle surrounding marriage equality in this country, and I like to stay as far away from political messes as much as I can.
But think that the major reason I've stayed away from it is that my own experience and/or understanding of the thing called marriage hasn't been positive overall.  In looking the only marriage I've ever seen up close - my parents' - I can't say that it made me want to run down the aisle.  This along with the jokes that people tend to tell about ball and chain or about how marriage makes people miserable, not to mention the fact that the divorce rate in America is around 50%.  And the portrayal of marriage in the media, complete with the foolishness of things like what Kim Kardashian did, doesn't offer the most promising examples.  None of that makes me want to enter into such a thing, no matter how much I recognize that I am built for (and how much I love) committed relationship.
There are so many different perspectives as to what marriage is as this Huffington Post article made clear. The answers are all over the place ranging from complaints about the institution to covenant relationship to something that shouldn't be politically defined to hell on earth. According to the Dictionary, marriage has the following definitions:

1. a. the social institution under which a man and woman establish their decision to live as husband and wife by legal commitments, religious ceremonies, etc. 

b. a similar institution involving partners of the same gender: gay marriage. 

2. the state, condition, or relationship of being married; wedlock: a happy marriage. 

3. the legal or religious ceremony that formalizes the decision of two people to live as a married couple, including the accompanying social festivities: to officiate at a marriage.

4. a relationship in which two people have pledged themselves to each other in the manner of a husband and wife, without legal sanction: trial marriage.

5. any close or intimate association or union
These definitions once again cover the gamut from the legal to the relational.  For the sake of this blog entry, I shall focus my emphasis on the last 2, since relationship is what's most important to me.  Because love/relationship is a focus of mine, I've spent much time thinking about marriage despite my feelings and misgivings about it.  I have wondered what a healthy, long-lasting relationship looks like, especially in the context of people who live together.  I've had some great friendships, though most of them have been seasonal (possibly another reason I wonder about this whole thing - I don't have any life-long friends).  Yet, I never shared a room much less a bed with any of my friends.  While I have people who I talk to daily and who I consider myself sharing my life with in some ways, the concept of combining life space (huge for me as an introvert), the sharing of most (if not all) of life, the love/intimacy of a good friend, the physical/sexual expression of both care and desire, and a day-to-day commitment with someone as they grow and change and evolve... I have to admit that I have cold feet just thinking about it.
I've been told over and over that it's something that you have to just experience, and I believe it.  For a very long time, I didn't really have a desire to, and I know that a lot of people have concerns about that.  According to the media, men will play around and date multiple women, but it takes that ONE to make them fall in love (and usually they have to go through some sort of major crisis/altercation to figure that out).  Well, I think it's true that the thing that can really help to make such a frightening situation into one that can be palatable, even pleasing, is finding a person with whom you connect on so many different levels and with whom you share a love that goes beyond anything you've ever experienced.  Now that's not to say that you marry every person you love.  There are a few people in my life - sisters, good friends, etc - that I say "I love you" to all the time.  And even the connection that we have as friends/sisters is great, but nothing about that makes me want to spend the rest of my life in a romantic, committed relationship with them.  There has to be that extra added dimension that includes compatibility (in any number of categories - mentally, spiritually, sexually, etc).  While the basis of marriage should be a strong friendship and companionship, there needs to be more than that.
What am I trying to say?  I used to be afraid of being married.  I didn't think it was for me.  I didn't think it could be a positive experience.  But marriage, while it is an institution with its own set of legal benefits and issues, is a coming together of two people who are good friends who share a love for one another and similar thoughts/goals for their future.  It's about two people who have decided to build a life together, taking who they are at the deepest levels and sharing that with another person on similarly deep levels.  It's about a caring, nurturing relationship where these two people hear and nurture the dreams of the other as they strive to shape a life that will impact the world in a positive way.  It's about growing in love in a way that gives you patience for the growing edges, strength for the tough times, affection for the good times, and a connection that allows for openness, intimacy, and vulnerability to take place.  When you find a space in which you love someone and you know that you are truly loved in return, it makes things so much simpler.  Marriage, from what I can gather, is this and so much more....  I guess you'll just have to see for yourself... and so will I.  :)