"Your 'alone' is my 'free'!!"

Ok, so I've noticed an epidemic of late. It is a sneaky thing that, I'm told, infects you when you least expect it, when you believe you're completely safe from contamination. It sometimes starts slowly, its sypmtoms unrecognizable even to the host's own awareness. Sometimes, it has been reported, that its effects are so strong upon outset that the host is immediately overcome entirely, with no hope for resistance or recovery. This 'disease' I speak of is love, and the epidemic I'm being swarmed around by at this time in my life is marriage.

Ok, I don't really think love is a disease, but seriously, what's up with EVERYBODY getting married?? Did I miss the memo that said "If you're not married (or at least engaged) by now, the aliens are coming to abduct you for experimentation."?? All of my friends are married. Some have been married for years now (the fact that I'm old enough to have friends my age who have been married 'for years' is an entirely different freak-out session, with which I will deal at a later time), and the ones that were still left are now also tied off to their various husbands and wives. I am the last man standing. (Well, woman, but that's not how the saying goes...)

And you know what? I'm glad.

I love being single. I love being single, and as I'm typing I'm sitting on my couch at 11:00 on a Friday night, alone, not getting ready to go out and not having returned from a date or even co-ed social extravaganza. I've got my hair up in a ponytail, ready to put on my pjs, and excited about the new book I'm going to start reading once I crawl into bed alone. And then I'm looking forward to falling asleep to season 2 of Grey's Anatomy. I love this life. Who wouldn't??

I love knowing that nobody's going to eat the last piece of my birthday cake.
I love knowing that the toilet seat is always going to be down.
I love knowing that nobody is going to care if my breath smells bad in the morning.
That no one cares if I leave the dirty dishes in the sink and the clean ones in the dishwasher until I run out of coffee cups.
That no one is going to kick me in the middle of the night or keep me up snoring.
That nobody is going to record over this week's episode of The Bachelor, or erase the three seasons of Private Practice I still have on DVR because I don't want to pay for the DVD sets.
That I can quit my job and move tomorrow if I decided I wanted to.
I can sprawl out over the entire bed and cuddle with all four pillows all by myself.
I don't have to dust unless I invite over company.
I get to have whatever I feel like eating for dinner.
I can hit the snooze as many times as I want in the morning.
I can buy all the shoes or clothes or books or movies that I want.
I don't have to worry about my bank account suprisingly being overdrawn.
I can store my clean clothes in my laundry basket and the dryer, and the dirty ones on the floor.
I get to watch chick flicks anytime I want.
I don't have to check with someone else's schedule to spend time with my friends.
I can dance in my underwear with the radio up as loud as it can go.

Who on earth would want to give up this freedom???

Don't get me wrong, I get that most people generally don't like being alone. I get that being with someone has perks of its own. It's nice to have a built-in partner for vacations and living expenses and movie nights. It's nice to have someone to snuggle with sometimes. It's great to have someone to make out with, or do whatever else ;) with, guaranteed whenever you want.

But the thing about marriage is that it's forever. Or at least, that's generally the goal. When you're married to someone, you have to share EVERY part of your life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. And you have to share that person's everything too. And that person, usually, doesn't really ever change.

So what happens when you wake up after ten years, twenty years, twenty days, and realize that you wish that person wasn't there? Or that you wish that person was a different person? Sure, there is comfort and security in being so familiar and connected with the same person, but there is also the flipside of excitement and adventure with someone new.

My point is that so many people my age are already into the 'settling down' part of their lives, when I'm out here trying to plan my next adventure. Did these people not have any other dreams than getting married? Nobody ever wanted to chase a crazy dream, or move to a brand new place, or anything else?

I'm not meaning to hate on marriage, but to me marriage is not something that should be rushed into. It's not one of those things you can do now but stop doing later. Marriage is (or should be) for life. And before you can share the rest of your life with someone else, doesn't that logically imply that you had your own life started before you decided to share it with them?

They say "When you know, you just know." Well, maybe that is true. Because for me, at this phase in my life, I know marriage isn't something I want in the picture. To me, wedding bells sound like a prison sentence, and that ring might as well be handcuffs.

Sometimes my friends ask me "Aren't you scared of being alone?" To them and to the rest of the world I say, "No. I like it this way, and your 'alone' is my 'free'!!!"