So on Friday, I went to the park with my mom. It a really nice park, but every time we go there, it's always some drama or commotion. So on this particular day, I figured what could possible happen? It's the day after Thanksgiving and most people are mellowed out by all the food....WRONG! This chick is singing at the top of her lungs as soon as I get situated with my book. "Okay", I tell myself, "If I just ignore her I will be able to pull this off"...WRONG! Of course, my aura of "I'm a great listener and I want to here everyone's problems" attracts her to me. My mom of course is thrilled! She ( The singer) comes over with her little gray poodle and serenades me (and my mother) with 2 songs. She sings alright and could have been a lot better had she not been drinking( or drunk...who knows?). She tells me that she is from originally from Mexico and that she is recording an album. She lets me hear a little bit of some demos she's been putting down in the studio. Not bad, she sounds a little bit like Amy Lee from Evanescence and Kelly Clarkson (if they both release Spanish language albums). She starts to open up to me. I tell her I like her music and that I used to be an artist as well....She confides that her music is her release from the world...and her singing (that day at the top of her lungs) was her dealing with her new marriage. She apparently married a guy she had known for 7 months. She lived with him for six, then got married within the last 30 days. She started to tell her story....which I don't want to repeat word for word, but what I do want to say is that she said she had lost herself...that being married had changed something about her and as an artist, she could feel the change in her core.
I have friends that are getting married and that are starting families...this is a normal part of life in our society...in most societies. But what they can't get about me is my regard for marriage. I will clearly say that I am selfish. We all are. I'm not driven by it, but I know myself. I think marriage is okay, but it's not something that I am actively pursuing or particularly want to do. For all my friends who are married or are in "serious" relationships, I respect your decision and recognize that all relationships are different. But when you become "coupled", I feel you loose yourself, you have to give up some of yourself to be with someone. I don't agree with that. This isn't always the case, but I've seen this with most relationships since I was a child. I've done this myself. I don't like it.
You begin to censor yourself. You begin to compromise. I've often heard that marriage is 50/50...so do you loose 50% of yourself? Some people think they are not "whole" and that they have to find their "better half". I find this undesirable. I think that I am, for the most part, whole, but not essentially whole by just being Mike. I think of it as a salad. It can be finished at any stage, but you can always improve. You can add other vegetables, meat, dressing, croutons,etc until you get the perfect mix you're satisfied with. I don't feel that I am a chicken caesar salad and I have to spend my life searching for my chicken, or the perfect caesar dressing. I strongly believe that as we live our lives we pickup all the right components, and that as life progresses, we eliminate the ingredients that don't perfect us, and add those that gets us closer to it. Mind you, this components can be friendships, enemies, careers,experiences,etc...not just romantic relationships. I see marriage as being stuck as the chicken caesar salad you liked for lunch that particular day. The next day it's still yummy...but by the fifth year it becomes harder re-create. Some days it almost all chicken with little romaine lettuce...some days you can barely find the chicken. Some days the caesar dressing is thick, some days it's runny...some days you can't tell if it's the same salad you ate that fateful day 5 years ago. You've lost something and you can taste it, but you just can't put your finger on what's missing.
Now maybe one day I will have paradigm shift, but right now that's how I see it. I think life can change people...I've seen joyful children grow up to be some of the most disturbed people...and vice versa. People can loose themselves in the struggle of daily life. But my point is, you loose enough of yourself in the daily struggle, why give someone the opportunity to change the recipe?
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment