Marriage. Now With More Beans

Mar­riage.  When I think of it, I almost instantly think of Al and Peg Bundy.  When I think of them, I laugh and then I snap back to real­ity, quickly dis­miss­ing the insti­tu­tion of mar­riage.  I know that I think of mar­riage in a way that isn’t con­sis­tent with what the major­ity of peo­ple see it as.  Why does mar­riage make me curl up into the fetal posi­tion?Mar­riage scares the liv­ing $#!+ out of me.  I’ve seen enough mar­riages go bad and fail and get really ugly and peo­ple who were once in love become bit­ter “poke your eyes out” ene­mies.  It’s truly a sad, sad thing and I hate see­ing it.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen suc­cess­ful mar­riages, but it’s the bad ones that I seem to remem­ber.  My mom was sin­gle when I was grow­ing up and she never really spoke ill of mar­riage, but she also didn’t glam­or­ize or roman­ti­cize it so I never felt it was a pri­or­ity to go and get married.

Here I am in my thir­ties and never mar­ried.  I some­times get crap from my fam­ily about it all, not being mar­ried and such.  My aunt thinks I should set­tle down and get seri­ous and my mom wants some grand kids… You know, the good stuff.   I’ve learned to deal with it, my fam­ily means well.  I think some of them just want to know if I’m gay or not.  I think there are some that have money on it all, but I digress.

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I’ve grown to think of mar­riage as a restrain­ing insti­tu­tion, a sort of prison.  I’m a free­bird, peo­ple, not one to be tied down.  Some­times I think of what Red said, in Shaw­shank Redemption.

I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feath­ers are just too bright… and when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice…

Recent Thanks­giv­ing dinner’s a friend’s place have shown me that my logic is flawed.  I’ve spent my last two Thanks­giv­ing din­ners with my friend, Malissa Coury’s (MissC) fam­ily.  Malissa’s folks are pretty awe­some peo­ple, who have made a good life for them­selves.  I don’t mea­sure that state­ment by what they have mate­ri­ally, but by the peo­ple that they sur­round them­selves with.  They have a pretty amaz­ing fam­ily and it’s always a treat to be around them all.  Every fam­ily has their strug­gles and tribu­la­tions to con­tend with and so does the Coury brood.  What I find remark­able is just how together Malissa’s par­ents are, Ron and Linda.  They are rooted in a strong Chris­t­ian foun­da­tion and, while I am not a reli­gious per­son, I see where there beliefs have enriched their lives. It makes a per­son think twice about their beliefs, I feel.

I thought to myself that Ron and Linda share the sort of mar­riage that I would want for myself… I think that’s when I real­ized that some­day I do want to be mar­ried.  Some­day, just not today or the next one after that.  Mar­riage doesn’t have to be this prison like insti­tu­tion, like the vision I keep in my head… How to make a mar­riage suc­cess­ful is a whole other arti­cle.  How­ever, my eyes were opened this hol­i­day season.

It also doesn’t hurt that they make a pretty fan­tas­tic Thanks­giv­ing feast and just awe­some company.

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