Why do we 'I Do' ?

I’m getting married in 5 days. Yep. I’ll be a wife this time next week and I can’t wait.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks after Owbags and I got engaged that I actually starting thinking seriously about what marriage means.

In our society, it’s every girls dream to get married. We fantasize about pretty dresses and prince charming but in all our dreaming we forget to seriously consider the act of marriage and what it actually means to us. That seems to be the boring part.

Today marriage is becoming a lot more of an event rather than a serious lifetime commitment. Over the past two decades, divorce rates have skyrocketed and the wedding industry is booming out of control.

No doubt there’s a heap of love involved but I do wonder how seriously tying the knot is being taken these days. As soon as he pops the question, there’s no time to ponder whether you can really see yourself with this man forever because you’re way too busy rolling out the lifetime dream of tulle, sappy love songs and marzipan.

Today, I think choice and freedom can be blamed for these ironic facts. We choose to be happy and we can be. If we’re unhappy in a marriage then we’ll end it. In a society of people who want quick fixes and to work less with the same rewards, these statistics are kind of inevitable.

But can someone please tell me where the real love has gone? The love that will stick it out through thick and thin, for richer for poorer in sickness and in health. The love that can see through the hard times, can find romance in the small things and remembers all the reasons you fell in love in the first place?

Owbags and I have been together for a long while now and I think we’ve had our fair share of ups and downs to test us. However I’ll never be that smug as to say that we’ve finally made it, nor are we kidding ourselves into thinking that the rest of our lives are going to be peachy because we are going to exchange rings and make some promises.

All I know is that I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with my best friend. The one who has seen me at my worst on a dodgy hostel floor in Nicaragua, the one who doesn’t mind if I eat the best part of his dinner and the one who makes me feel at home wherever I am in the world. I know that the future holds lots of challenges and bucket loads of joy and I cant wait for either because I’ll be sharing them with my husband.

The Blue Line

I have a love hate relationship with my journey home each day. It’s love because I get to go home to my little family of dog and boyfriend. It’s hate because I have to get on the train to get there. Ok, hate is such a strong word. Like any good relationship I go through passionate highs and lows with the train. There are moments when I feel inspired, when the sun glints through the dirty windows onto the grafitti and makes it seem like anything is possible. Then there are days where it is so depressing you want to get off at the nearest stop. You know them…the days when it’s raining, you don’t get a seat and the man who gets off at Sydenham is letting his umbrella drip into your shoe.

One of the factors that contributes to my mixed feeling about this mode of transport is the way people look and act when they're on the train. To be frank, they look dead sad. They don't make eye contact. They pretend that other people aren't there. They leave their bag on the spare seat knowing that someone else could sit there. Since when did it become hard to be polite to other people?

The other half of me hangs onto to the train ride for those tiny sparks of life. There are days when you see people give up their seat for others, when the baby in the stoller giggles his way through 5 stops and when you get a seat and can read your book the whole way into the city.

I also hold onto some optimisn about my train rides. It reminds me of being in a long distance relationship with my boyfriend. For a while there we did 8 hour train rides to see each other. It was dreadful and it was romantic...the anticipation, the dreamy stares out the window, the excitement at the end of the train ride. There was also this one time when a dreadlocked hippy from Byron fell asleep on my shoulder. AWKWARD. Another night I sat next to a nice boy and chatted for an hour or so. When I woke up in the morning he was gone. There was a note left under my food tray with his name, number & a nice to meet you message. Of course, I never called him, but it just shows what can happen when you reach out and acknowledge people. I am sure I wouldn't have got a note if I had put my ipod on and pretended he didn't exist.

So next time you're on the train try one of these: Give up your seat for someone, Smile at someone random for no reason, Sing out loud to the music in your ear phones, Get up to let the person next to you out, Help a lady with a stroller. Just DO SOMETHING. Because who knows? Maybe we all feel the same way about the train and we're all too scared to make the first move.

 \