| note: written on 4/9/07. posted on 4/10/07
Today is my one year anniversary and I’m here sitting on a
bus on my way back to Charlottesville.
Last night after dinner at a very yummy Vietnamese restaurant I might add I
told Ali that if I started to act all needy and girly tonight to just work with
me. As it was our one year a lot of questions and concerns came to mind. Not so
much questions, just things I couldn’t get myself to ask him before but now I
could under the guise of it being our one-year anniversary. I couldn’t have
asked for a better boyfriend and everyday I wake up so happy knowing that he
thinks of me and that we’re in this for the long run. Our relationship isn’t
one that has been all smiles and smooth sailing. One of the biggest challenges
with our relationship is that we’re 6 hours away from each other and that our
meetings during the year are usually 3-4 days long and cost hundreds of
dollars. But time is money and I spend a lot of my money going to see him and
never do I regret spending so much money to see him. He on the other hand spends
a lot more than me on this relationship and sometimes I feel so guilty, but he
says he wants to so I guess it makes it ok. As we went to bed last night I told
him that I want to get married. He was like “what, right now?” and I was like
“yea I guess.” I’ve told him before that I really feel like I could get married
to him right now, but we’ve made a deal that we’d wait till we were out of
college and we still have to talk to our respective families about all of this.
I won’t lie; sometimes all I want to do is get out of this relationship. There
are times when I feel so hurt by what he does that I can’t envision myself
staying with him in the long run. I’ve learned to deal with the little things
like him getting mad about certain things I do, but on Saturday of this weekend
I swear I was ready to just call it quits on this relationship.
Ali started working again on Friday and Saturday nights at
Venue as a bottle host. I was kind of bummed that he’d be working this weekend
as it was our anniversary, but whatever I learned to make do. I was feeling
really blah on Friday night. I told him that I wanted him to come home as soon
as he got off and he said ok. He said that he’d be working from 10-2 or so,
give or take. So around 3 I called him and was like errr…whats really good? And
he’s like go to sleep, I’m going to be here for a little bit longer. So I did
even though I was really upset. Ali comes strolling in 4:15 drunk off his ass
and acting obnoxious. I go to bed extremely furious and had the worst sleep
ever. Some time around 7 am I think he gets up and starts to puke his guts out.
At that point I know that he drank a lot last night and I didn’t feel a smidge
of sympathy for him. He falls asleep again and doesn’t get up till 3 pm. That
day was bad. I got up and took a shower just to calm myself down. I was so hurt
by the fact that he had enough leisure time to go and get drunk at the club
instead of come home and spend time with me. It was almost an indirect way of
him saying that he didn’t care that I was here and that I was waiting for him.
The thing is this sort of thing has happened before. It wasn’t the first time
that Ali has chosen to get drunk at a club over spending time with me. I guess
its unfair that to say that Ali has chosen to get drunk a number of times,
rather he’s chosen to do something else knowingly well that I was at home
waiting to spend time with him. So back to my story of this whole marriage thing; I really
felt like I wanted to be married to him Sunday night. The next morning he was
like do you remember what you were saying last night and I was like yea. He
said “do you really want to get married now?” and I was like “yea, but me being
realistic outweighs my impulsiveness.” We both agreed that doing it after
college would appease everyone. I guess it gives us time to really know each
other. So I’m sitting on the bus and I’m thinking what makes a marriage. I know
two different couples that are close to me and are married. One of my friends
from high school got married at 18 and is happier than she could ever imagine.
My other friend is much older (30’s I think) and she got married 3 years ago.
She always says “guys, you’re lucky that you’re not married. Seriously you’ll
miss being single once you’re married.” And so I was thinking, why is the
feeling of being marriage different between these two couples? Is it that the
first couple is younger and has fewer commitments than the other one? Is it
because the second couple has a 2 year old baby boy, while the first one
doesn’t? Seriously, I want to know why. I can’t imagine my relationship with
Ali changing in any way once we get married. I already know how he’s like at
home because we lived together for an entire month. But my friend (the 30 year
old one) got married a while after her and her boyfriend lived together. I
wonder if it’s because of more commitments. I’m sure my first friend is still
somewhat supported by her parents because she’s still in school and so is her
husband (but he works at a bank now). Maybe it’s because they are apart of the
younger generation and have a more loose meaning of marriage. I don’t really
mean loose, but maybe the new generation’s idea of marriage is one more close
to that of a relationship. I’ve always been a firm believer in the fact that
love is not the only thing that makes a marriage. Most marriages in the US end up in
divorce because of infidelity and money issues. Money, au contraire to what
most people believe, is a core ingredient in the path of people’s lives. I know
this because if I didn’t care about money and such I wouldn’t be working now
and I would just live off of what my parents give me. Ali and I are both firm
believers against divorce (but just to show that I’m not being so naïve, I’m
sure that most people that first get married believed that they would never get
divorced). But shit happens. So does believing that our relationship will stay
in tact forever act as a deterrent to us not getting divorced? I don’t think
so. I think Ali and I (well Ali) have a more realistic understanding of
marriage and living together. I know that being married won’t be all fun and
games.
I’m trying this new thing where I just turn emotions off. I
tell myself “turn emotions off” and I try to just move on with life. Ali does
it, why can’t I? I can turn off sadness from separation off easily. Well maybe
I suppress it, but still to me that comes close to turning it off. I’m not
feeling as sad today as I was last time I was on this bus. The last time I was
on this bus I was under the impression that I wouldn’t see Ali till May because
it was never definite when we’d see each other again. Or maybe it was because
Ali told me that everything will work out and so far he’s been right every time
he said something about us. But, I lost my IPod. That broke my heart. |
