I have just updated the GNU Terry Pratchett plugin here, and I got an email from Elspeth saying that she has closed Breathing Grace, so it has been removed from the blogroll.
One of the young women she influenced reblogged a comment from a woman who is marrying at 22.
….about a year ago, I was extremely ill. I will spare you the details, but I have never felt so helpless over my own body. I was constantly up in the early hours of the morning writhing in pain on my bathroom floor, and Alex somehow managed to wake up and answer my sobbing phone calls and comfort me on his already limited sleep schedule. He sent me medicine and positive messages, listened to me when I just needed to vent and cry, and supported me through doctor visits. He was there.To love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part – I promised this a long time ago, and have no intentions of ever going back on it.
I know that people always say I’m at the age where I think I know everything, but I don’t think that changes as you get older. I think people in their 30s and 40s think they know everything as well, and we all learn as we get older. People get divorced in their 20s? People get divorced when they’re 50 too. It’s smarter to save up and be financially sound before you make any commitments? I’m going to be relatively poor at 22 whether I’m married or not. I’d rather spend those years with someone who makes the misery just a little less miserable. Getting married to Alex is going to make me happy, even through the inevitable petty arguments, Ramen Noodle diets, and toilet seats left up. And I would think it’s pretty selfish for anyone to not want me to experience that happiness just because I’m not living my life in the order they think I should live it in, getting married at the age they think I should get married at, or getting married to the person they think I should marry. I’m not going to live my life in fear of divorce or poverty or anything else for the sake of other people, because at the end of the day, it’s my life, my love, my happiness, and I deserve to be in control of those emotions and face the adversity that comes with it on my own.
I don’t need Alex to complete me, I don’t need to backpack through Europe to “find myself,” and I don’t need to date 20 more people to make sure he’s the one. I don’t need to spend the next 5 years getting to know him better. I’ve known him since I was 13 years old, and I get to know him more every day. Being married allows me to get to know him on another level that 5 years of unmarried life won’t give me.
I would add that it is less about your happiness and more about being a helpmeet: that your early 20s is the best time biologically to be having kids, and joy comes, all too frequently, when you are too tired and too busy. That this life is not perfect, And marriage is a risk, at any age.
The comments are illuminating. Too many women saying she’s wasting this decade. As if sleeping with sufficient men to ensure you have scarred up your fallopian tubes is a good thing. I approve of women marrying fairly young: it worked for my parents generation, and most of them are still together. But they had faith, and they were faithful. And that is something lacking all too much today.
Just saw this… I married at 22 to my HS sweetie too. What else do you need to know? At that point, our relationship had gone through his dad’s death, my grandma’s death, we’d done the long-distance relationship thing for a couple of years, and the sitting in each others’ pockets thing for a couple of years.
Yeah, the first few years were bumpy. But our lives are so much nicer for having spent those years together with someone at our back… I have eyes to look around at my friends who waited to marry, thanks. I’m the one with the prize. If I have regrets, they’re in not getting married even younger.
Well, my daughter married at 21, and so far they have had to deal with the death of his godfather and serious illnesses.
I got married at 28. I’m hoping that sons one and two finds someone before they graduate, (Son one is doing pharmacy: son two is still in HS and I mean when he has a trade) and they build a life together.
And no one would date me at HS or at College. I was a nerd nerds avoided.
Hope that is not TMI.
I thought no one would date me either. Freshman year saw me wearing turtlenecks and my mom’s calf-length skirts lest anyone see me. Braces, glasses, bad skin and too much weight. Oh, and I lettered in Academic League. -shrugs- My current FB pic is what I looked like at the end of soph year, but I credit DH with a lot of that. Nothing like a little appreciation… paired with a little insane frustration when the appreciation disappeared ’cause he was too busy dealing with a dying parent that he didn’t mention to anyone else. HS was such a soap opera. Looking back, I am aghast.
Hey dude, it’s your combox, not sure how it can be TMI. 😀 And I always want to know everything about everybody, preferably with footnotes and backstory.