These days, it seems that everybody around me is either getting engaged or getting married. And boy, oh, boy, is the number of friends committing to their partners with phrases such as til death do us part increasing with each passing minute.
Take this month for instance. It’s the first month of 2007. The first 31 days of a brand new year. Wait, I take that back. A whole month hasn’t even complete yet and I have 3 classmates who had gotten themselves married. Yep, you heard me right. Married! With the whole happily ever after tag to boot. These 3 girls young ladies are people I literally grew up with. Young ladies that I’d gone to school with for 11 years from primary up to secondary education. I’d known them from the time we had bad haircuts, fringes like china dolls and pigtails and look where they are now? Married! The wives of lucky men. And mothers-to-be in the near future. It’s hard to envision all 3 of them with kids on tow a few years down the road but that’s just life ain’t it?
It’s just too bad that I can’t make it to any of the weddings, especially to Sherny’s wedding which was on the 21st January. Sherny’s a good friend from school and she encourages me a lot in my walk with God during out last 2 years of high school. In fact, when I first accepted Christ into my life, she was the first person I turned to to teach how to pray to God. And now, she’s Mrs Marcus Tay/Tey. Wow!
With so many good news of matrimony surrounding me at the moment, I just find myself thinking, who’s next? And when will it be my turn? Will I ever find enough courage to commit myself to one person permanently or would I, like so many woman I know, just end up being alone at the end of the day while grasping to the idea of finding true love one fine day? I know, I know, I’m still young, but in another 2 years, I’ll officially be in my mid-20s and then, what? What next? Even now, I find myself facing the dreaded question from relatives – When is it gonna be your turn? How long do I have to wait for your wedding?
Technically, I did not really face the music from my relatives. But according to Mum, the question had been posed to her late last year during one of my cousin’s wedding. Relatives were counting off the 2 cousins who got married and were guessing and anticipating the next niece/nephew who’ll be joining the throes of matrimony. For reasons only God alone will ever know, everybody keeps pointing the finger to me! I mean, hallo? There are other cousins who are older than me and who also have long-term partners. Why aren’t they pointing their fingers at them and anticipate that they are going to get married soon? Why me? And of course, it didn’t help when I learned that during Ivan’s wedding, Grandma was nagging Mum to remember the preparations (for a traditional Chinese wedding) and things that needed to be done because according to Grandma, “It’s going to be our Grace’s turn a few years down the road“. Yikes!
I’m amazed at how much I’d change in the course of a year. When I was with the ex, I’d always knew inside my heart that we’d somehow end up getting married to each other because it’s just the inevitable that happens when 2 person had been together for nearly 5 years. I’d always thought that I’ll get married young and truth be told, i was quite ready to settle down and do the whole let’s-get-married-and-start-a-family jiggle. Before any of you feminists out there start to protest, please bear in mind that it was the old me who was thinking that way. As a lot of you knew, things did not went as planned or as foreseen by everybody. The ex and I never got married. In fact, I ended the whole relationship with him, which, by the way, was the best decision that I’d ever made in my whole entire life in the area labelled, the matters of the heart. Now, though I have someone new in my life, I’m too scared to ever wanna commit myself wholly. I know, I was so optimistic about finding another man who loves me whole-heartedly when things ended with the ex and I think I did find that man in YK. Yet, a big part of me is being quite the commitment -phobe now and frankly, it’s hard to see myself getting married for the time being.
During my 1 1/2 months of work at a high class restaurant, I’d come across a few wedding receptions and was around to serve the happy couples. Each time during a reception, I have a colleague who will start thinking bout her own wedding in the near future and how she wants things to be done. Every single time after she tells me what she wants, she’ll asked about my own dream wedding. And every single time without fail, I’ll answer promptly that I have no idea because I don’t think about it. It never fails to bring a look of shock into her face. She’d interrogate me on the age that I want to get married and I’d told her that I’d never thought of it. But I know I do not want to start a family too young. She did not let up and kept questioning me on how old I would like to get married whenever she could. Finally, I told her that perhaps, I wanted to get married at 30. She nearly died at the spot!
My fears aside, I truly admire those who choose to commit themselves to their partners. It takes a lot of work for 2 different individuals to compromise their own needs and wants in order to make a relationship work. However, what awes me the most is the fact that those 2 individuals, are are willing to take a chance, a risk, whatever or however you want to call it, to make things work between them for life. More often than not, we always tend to see that the grass is greener on the other side by thinking that relationships are easy for couples that look so happy together. Nevertheless, we should always remind ourselves that it takes a whole lot more of time, tears an emotional investment to make a relationship between 2 different people to work in the long run.
As for my own happiness, well, I’d rather leave it up to God and fate to guide and decide for me. Then again, I guess I should also open myself up to the chances that are right in front of me and let go of certain fears to go with the flow of life in order to find happiness and myself again.
