Marriage - A Metaphor?

My mind was suddenly hit by one of the fundamental fact of live. Family member, relatives and friends around me are getting married off one by one this year. When you were growing up as a kid, you will be thinking…. when can you reach that height to be taller than your peers. After that ‘racing to be who is the tallest’ phase, you are still growing and not so much as physically growing vertically, but most probably you are worrying about growing horizontally. Then, later you slowly out grew all the childish ways that you have wherever possible (although some people just stuck at this phase somehow). After all these, you are still growing…. to be older of course but unfortunately, not necessary wiser though.

As you grew and grew until you reach at some point in the middle of your life span, there comes the part where people in your peers which you had spent time doing all those childish things are slowly leaving their single hood life to join the blissful (or horror) life of the married world. This year 2007 has become a very eventful year for me. Well, not so much as the center of my life’s event, but it is more to the center of my cousin’s and friend’s event. Oh, and my beloved sister of course! They were all married this year and there’s still some coming along the way for the remaining two and the half months left for this year. First, it was Siew Lee gotten married in March, then Amy in June, my sister in July, and there were few others in between which I do not wish to mention. Up and coming is my cousin Cindy’s wedding and then Siong Long & Joey’s wedding in November, and most recent news is Michelle Chan’s wedding ceremony this coming December. Oh dear, I am going broke!

Seeing wedding bells going off and fresh ones coming all year long, it makes me wonder when will I reach a point where I would feel left out from the ‘crowed’. Fortunately, I am not right now. I am still blissfully enjoying my unmarried life. Probably that’s because I have a comfortable and steady on going relationship now that I don’t event think of jumping on the bandwagon. I am still rightfully happy at where I am now, not feeling obliged to claim my title as a Mrs. yet.

Well, it’s true that I had long have this relationship with someone, long enough that people often do ask me the question of when is my turn to get married. Probably it’s the fact that I’m a girl. But I’m not worried as I am still in my twenties. Duh! It’s not a surprising thing now as there are many women who are not married but have a good wonderful relationship with their partner in live. After all, divorce rate is rising high and marriage cert is just a legal bondage written on paper that doesn’t hold much meaning other than stating you’re the Mr. & Mrs. so and so.

Hold on a second, please don’t get me wrong. I am not against marriage and such. It is just that to me, marriage is supposed to be something sacred and holds true to the meaning of love. It is not just the legal bondage written on paper but it is supposed to be a true act of commitment and conviction to stay true to each other ‘till death do us part’. Nor is it marriage is an act of bonding the person whom you deem you love to be forever by your side because you are scared that somebody else will snatch him/her away from you. This seems right and maybe it is really love. But what if it was just an infatuation or a ‘spur of a moment’ thing. To me, the worst of all is people get married just for the sake of getting married or because ‘my parents/ relatives/ friends asked me to’.

Well, I’m not the expert here in this subject of marriage. After all, I am still young and have a lot to learn. All I just do it observe, think and learn from whatever things that I could grasps. Now I just left one question to ask. If the majority of the people I know are already married and busily mending their own married life, and I am not, should I be worried of where I am at? Would you be worried? Hmm…. I still couldn’t imagine exactly how I would react at that time. Just grab a man and get married off? Definitely NOT IN MY RIGHTFUL STATE OF MIND !