Engagement

A long time ago, in a land not so far away, but in a much younger version of myself I had this idea of what it would be like to be engaged. Granted, in my young mind, I envisioned being a princess and had daydreams of a prince charming on a white horse and what not. However, I never got so far as to have my wedding planned out in my head. I figured out early on that such a thing was silly. Furthermore, anyone who rode up to me on a white horse and asked me to marry them would definitely be something I would find so odd that I would probably just run away and hide and possibly change my phone number.

After that stage, I had never really thought about it. Sure, I had some thoughts on how nice it would be to find someone I could connect with and travel my life with, but such a thing got moved very far down my list after other things came up in my life. It’s not that I thought I didn’t deserve it or that I had this idea that all men are evil or anything. I just figured in real life, this day and age, to be swept off your feet is truly something only found in fairy tales.

To my great surprised, I was wrong on so many counts. Yes, it’s true; a relationship is something you work on. This notion that a person is just going to pop up in your life and be perfect from the beginning and will always seem perfect is unreal. That part is true. However, what is also true is the happiness that comes from finding someone you can be with and honestly say you could be with them forever. The peace they bring in your life, the happiness that comes from being with someone who actually understands and accepts you. A person who thinks you are beautiful and believes in you, who shares similar goals and beliefs, enough that you can always find common ground between you. It’s amazing how much joy comes from such a relationship.

As happy as I have been, I have also been very scared. I guess I am to some degree because such a commitment is scary. However, primarily I’ve been scared for an entirely different reason: I’m afraid people who have known me in my life, my family, my friends will not share in my happiness. My fear comes from the fact that I often get compared to who I was, a very long time ago, when I was a very goal driven, workaholic. I would go to school, come home and spend hours studying all in effort to have an opportunity to advance my education, something I had dreamed about since I even knew what a University was.

However, I learned that there is so much to learn about this world and life that cannot be learned in a classroom, not even in a university classroom. It was difficult, but in a nutshell I had to accept that while my goal to advance my education had stayed the same, the way I wanted to, no, needed to acquire it had to change in order be successful. No, of course this may seam like a simple thing, but you would be surprised. People in my life have been oddly very quick to judge. It’s for this reason that I’ve been afraid. I’m not living a life that they have either wanted me to live or in other cases thought I would want.

Things change, and now I have. I’m now engaged. It’s funny. I find myself looking in the mirror and saying to me like a proclamation, “This is what an engaged person looks like.” Of course I follow this up with, “I don’t look any different.” I don’t know what I was expecting; maybe I thought I would glow with joy or something? I have no idea, but it’s funny to me that what is finally convincing people back home that I’m really okay with myself is my engagement, something that causes no change in myself and all the things that did bring me great change have gone completely unnoticed by them. Oh well, at least now I can finally share a piece of my happiness with them and that alone brings a huge smile on my face.