Hmph

Whenever I tell a couple that I'm happy for them when they get into a relationship, engaged, or married, I feel a twinge of guilt somewhere in the back of my mind because I know I'm not being completely honest with them.  A part of me is extremely jealous.

When I take the time to examine this part of my thought process, I feel extremely upset about it, because by being jealous, that means I'm rooting for the relationship to fail simply because I don't have one.  What right do I have to deny another person happiness, especially if I'm friends with that person?

I've asked myself that a lot lately.

Not to say that I don't really, truly mean it when I tell a couple I'm happy they're engaged.  I was truly happy to hear my friend Kim Welch was engaged to Victor Doroghian.  And I was really happy when my friend Jen Weston got married to Nick Taylor.

Still, the more likely response is a smile and a "I'm so happy for you!" But in reality I'm thinking, that makes me so depressed.  Go be blissfully happy somewhere not around me.  When someone has lost in love, I'm much better able to deal with that.  I can handle sad people.  Not that I want people to lose in love all the time, but I don't really like to see other people succeeding in love when I can't get a date to save my life.

Most of the time it really doesn't matter to me that no guys want to date me, but surges of new relationships, engagements, and marriages throw me into a broody mood.

And I thought I'd share that broody mood with everyone today, because I felt like it needed to be said, or I was going to go insane.

What is This "Love" You Speak of?

I am constantly surprised by people's definition of love, and how fast they fall in and out of it.  This "love" that people speak of, in my mind, is infatuation.  You see someone, and there is an extra release of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine in the brain that makes you physically attracted to a person.  This is all fine and good and whatnot, because that's what brings you to want to get to know a person, but you have to wait a few months (at least) to see if you "love"that person, because that's around when infatuation wears off.

To truly love a person, you have to like them despite their faults (like not liking Michael Jackson's music... yes, that equates to a fault in my eyes and makes me question one's judgment) and love them for their funny little quirks.  You not only love a person for what they have the potential to become, but for what they are now.  You realize that you're not always going to get along or see eye to eye, but that it's okay, because there's more than one way to solve any problem.

So, when young people get married after only knowing each other for two or three months, I worry.  I worry that they don't understand the commitment they are making to one another, and that they may just be feeling infatuation that hasn't worn off yet.  Truly, I think that a lot of divorces could be prevented if partners spent at least a year getting to know each other before they decided to get married.  Then each individual would know somewhat of who they are committing their life to before marrying.   Knowledge is power, so they say, so why shouldn't that apply to who you date and who you marry?

Sure, I knew my ex-husband for two and a half years before I married him, and it didn't save me from being divorced.  Some people are great at hiding important facts and lie their way through life, but I'm convinced this isn't the case with most people.  Most people, when looking for a mate, are upright and honest because they don't want to have to hide who they are from the one they love.  So please, my friends, don't make me worry about you because you jump into a relationship and forget to take time to get to know the person you say you "love."  And I'll stop lecturing now.

Finale Time

It's the final day up here at Bear Lake for the YSA ward, and we decided to take our boat out one more time for them all.  Things went well; I got the boat off the trailer just fine and I was able to tow two groups of people on the chariot tube we have.  Then, when I went to let my dad pull Travis behind the boat, it wouldn't move.  The engine worked just fine, but the propeller wouldn't engage.  We waited for twenty minutes for my dad's counselor to come and tow us in.

So much for a final boating day.  Every single boat we own is broken now.  It is also ironic that we would have to tow the boat home, because my dad noticed that there was a nail in the boat trailer tire yesterday.  Before he tows it home he will have to change a flat tire.  If it weren't for bad luck, the Adams Family wouldn't have any luck at all.

Also, you know when you see people who are older than you when you are young, and you admire them?  Well, I did that with some of the people up here, but now that I am grown up, they are less impressive.  I hate that, mainly because it lets me know that I am growing up.  Having no reason to find that person more special is definitely proof to me that people are enchanted with those that they find better/more mysterious than themselves.  It also makes me wonder if that is why we fall in and out of infatuation with people, because we find out that they are normal.  If so, how does anybody ever stay with one person for their entire lives?  Those two people must always stay equally mysterious to one another or continually feel that their partner is better than they are.  That's the only way I can see marriage working, because each person strives to be just as good as the other their entire married lives.