My Wed Alert

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage.
Remember that children's chant? Well, I spent my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood believing that it would go as smoothly as that. But clearly not - as the bare third finger on my left hand testifies.
Have I loved? Yes. Have I been loved? Yes. Have I loved and been loved in return? Yes, yes, yes (on more than one occasion, I assure you).
So why am I single? Heck, if everyone who asked that question gave me a dollar, I'd be on the Forbes rich list. The trouble is, a good marriage needs more than just love. For starters, it requires mutual commitment.
So, let's start again. Have I loved someone to the point of being willing to commit to marriage? Yes. Has a man loved me to the point of feeling committed and proposing to me? Yes. Have those situations happened during the same relationship? Er, no.
I won't bore you with the details of why mutual commitment didn't choose to bless any of my past relationships. Let's face it - most of us can't even commit to finishing War and Peace.
Almost all single women in their 30s who I've met, especially ones like me living in the marriage-oriented Eastern world, admit to having been labeled everything from "picky" to "pesky". Some of us have even endured the "bitch-to-witch" axis. It's a pity that, while slinging around judgmental labels and tossing out assumptions, people don't bother to ask us women how we actually feel about marriage.
Some singletons like the idea of marriage and are just seeking the right man. Others have been burned by their romantic experiences and, wholeheartedly or not, consciously or not, are inching away from the marriage path.
Some never bought into the notion in the first place, although are open to possibilities. Others are simply dead-set against the whole institution of marriage. No one should ever make the mistake of assuming these women can just be conveniently lumped into a single box, or ever judge what they think, feel or decide for themselves.
Marriage Mesh
Personally I like the idea of marriage, of two people who love each other creating and mutually committing to a new life. This has nothing to do with societal demands or other trivial issues. As an only child, I'm capable of and have enjoyed living alone, but I'm interested in the idea of meshing with a man to create a unique life only he and I share.
That unique life could encompass my penchants for tiger cubs and the color purple and his loyalty to a certain football team or tendency to devour steaks for breakfast, or whatever his foibles may be. It would be a unique life composed of our respective normalcy and quirkiness that hopefully will give birth to new lives - metaphorically and literally.
For a couple to build a unique life together is like them making their own quilted blanket, giving safety and comfort stitched together out of every aspect of their individual lives.
I have friends who've been divorced twice before the ripe old age of 40, so my vision's certainly not impaired by rose-tinted glasses. I believe there's no such thing as a perfect marriage anymore than there is a perfect person. To me, beyond laws and traditions, marriage is basically what the two people involved agree upon and commit to. I'm fully aware that, as for anything you want to last a lifetime, marriage needs constant work.
I humbly expect that there will be periods - some short, others long - when my spouse and I will not be crazy about each other. Yet, for better or for worse, I want to try my fate in that seemingly adventurous journey. Take the plunge, as they say.
But it seems to me that, particularly in this part of the world, the elements outside a marriage often interfere, destabilizing or even ruining it. Indonesian society is a collective, structured, multilayered and interlinked maze. As beautiful and useful as that labyrinth can be in helping out someone's friend's neighbor's colleague who is in trouble, it can also, more often than needed, intrudes into a couple's marital life, bringing with it unnecessary troubles.
The in-laws who keep lurking, the extended family members who never stop making insinuations about this, that or the other, or just society at large, so ready to drop a collective judgmental sneer at any breach of so-called acceptable norms.
As if today's packed, fast-tracked world doesn't already load us down with pressure and temptations, people feel the urge to get into your private matters. Yabba, yabba do.
Nevertheless, these ugly tentacles of society haven't scared me off marriage, nor has my long history of failed relationships. I believe I can and will find a man as committed as I am to fighting for the right to create and live a shared life, because we love each other that much that we want to make this journey together. This is a journey that, with all the jovial Sagittarian in me, can jet from Jakarta to Jupiter … but perhaps I shouldn't scare off any potential suitors this early.
So, to be betrothed, or not? At the end of the day, it's up to each one of us to do what we choose with and for our own lives - and to own up to our innermost truths. I've figured out my preference. Whatever you choose, for every truthful fiber in you, from every truthful fiber in me, I wish you love, light and life.