Marriage is a lot of things. It is the beginning of a new life for most, the continuation of an old habit that is refusing to die hard, something more for your parents than for yourself, or it can be the piece of your life that you have been looking forward to the most.
Most girls think about the man they're going to marry. They dream him up to be a mix of their favorite actor and their most hardcore high school crush with some kind of European accent. He is everything she could ever want, but there's only one problem—he's not real.
Instead, most girls settle for the boyfriend they have found love for during high school whether they are a perfect match for each other or not. This is not to knock the man alone because a lot of times it is the immaturity on both parts that makes the match less than ideal. One of you wants to go to college in California and the other can't stand being away from their parents for that long. One of you is an expert at expressing their feelings and the other is a vault with a glued shut door.
There are a lot of things about a young person's life that makes them unfit to get married. Not all couples are like this when they're young, but I do venture to say that most are. That is why I can wait a little while to get married.
Don't make a mistake here—this is not for lack of finding my perfect man. He's here, and he's immeasurably wonderful. However, we are still kids. While legally that isn't the case, that is still how our brains work. We crack up laughing at any inappropriate jokes, make mistakes doing the laundry, have to ask our parents for the occasional loan and forget to take our antibiotics when we're supposed to.
We don't really know anything about a mortgage payment or what the best life insurance plan is or, as a matter of fact, what the heck we're going to do with the rest of our lives. Ideally, if the princess option is still on the table, I would gladly take the general education requirements for that. Put my name down in the next available slot.
Unfortunately, life gets real. We have realized that in a number of ways and both of us have grown up faster than we would have liked to. We have incredible families who might have babied us a little bit too much, and friends who might have encouraged play overwork a few too many times.
Bottom line— we aren't ready to get married. Are we ready to spend the rest of our lives together? Absolutely.
Have I planned so many different versions of our wedding day out in my head? Positively.
But at this very moment, we aren't ready to be alone out in the world. We don't know how to do our taxes by ourselves. We aren't quite sure how many times a year we should be going to the doctor. Sure, we would go to the ends of the earth for the others' happiness. We are in this together, no matter what, but that's just the thing.
If all of this is true, why rush to get married? We know that neither of us is going to give this up. The excitement isn't going to fade, and the work is going to be continually put in. I can't wait to learn more new things about him each day that we spend together, and if I learn one new thing every day then boy am I in for a treat.
I would love to marry this man tomorrow. However, the commitment is there. The love is overflowing. The laughter is contagious. I can wait to get married because he makes me feel like I'm on top of the world without a ring on my finger—and it'll be so much sweeter when it's finally here.