The Right Stuff

I am the youngest person in my department, so I have the sublime pleasure of listening to life and love advice from a bunch of women who hate their husbands. This is always unsolicited advice, mind you. And I don’t really mind it, but it is disheartening more often than not.

Today, I was having a conversation about one of my friends (who I am not involved with, nor have I ever been but he has a good job and a bright future) with the office crew and all I got was, “Ooooh, Crystal, you should marry THAT one…” because, according to them, that mushy love stuff wears off eventually anyway, and you end up despising the person you are married to so you might as well marry someone who has something to offer you. Something who is just tolerable and compatible enough for you, because everyone changes and you might as well not have high hopes or high standards for that matter.

I find this to be a really hard thing to accept. I also find it odd that, in hanging out with people this much older than me, I feel more and more like I am trapped in an episode of “Sex and the City”.

Recently, I have been thinking an awful lot about matters of the heart and what things matter more to me in the overall scheme of things than others. And how do you choose which things are expendable? How can you possibly know anything for sure? And I know that this is the Capricorn in me, having to analyze every bit of everything to find answers and then being paralyzed by the lack of resolve. But it is just the way that I am.

I know that I want someone I can be a jackass with. And someone that I can be completely comfortable with. And someone that makes me laugh. But also someone who is tender and loving and kind…but the thing is, these things can all be very much present at the beginning, but then fade in time. And they can be clouded by distance or oblivion or hope. So, how do you know when you have it all…and that it is the “right” thing?

Because I know one thing, I don’t want to end up one of those women in their forties who can’t stand their husbands and wish they had chosen someone else.

Stuck-in-my-head Song of the Day: "This Modern Age"- The Strokes