People are constantly asking me, "Kristin, what advice would you give to all the young people out there thinking about getting married?" Okay so no one has ever actually asked me that, but you know, if they did this is what I'd tell them: If you can help it, do not get married too young. Wait, wait, wait, wait, go figure out who you are first, live your life, THEN get married, you know, if you want to. No pressure.
I was 32 when I got hitched and if I had to do it all over again I'd do it exactly the same way. Your 20's are for having fun and finding our who you are, not for committing yourself to "forever". I don't know why everyone is in such a big hurry to do this. Is it the fear of being alone? Alone can be a good thing sometimes. If it's love and it's real, it will last. Man, someone should be writing this stuff down.
We, as far as we know, only live once and your youth, once it's gone, that's it, poof, it's gone, and now it's time to take your teeth out and go to bed, grandpa. You NEED to enjoy it. This is imperative to your future happiness, trust me. Go out, be stupid, stay up late, pass out on friends couches, travel the world, live in different places, make bad decisions, work weird jobs, make out with strange people at parties and then knock over the Culligan water cooler because you and that guys name you can't remember both fall into it.....not that I've ever done that, um, but, you know.....I heard about someone doing it...
My point it, THIS is the time to be young and make bad decisions, this is how you find out how to make GOOD decisions later on. And I'm not even talking about all that good stuff that comes with age that makes it even smarter to wait: better self control, better financial stability, and of course lower divorce rate for those that wait. Sure all that is great, but what I'm talking about is this: Go find out who you are first before you decide to strap on the old ball and chain (I really do love being married, but I also love making it sound like it's a pain in the ass. My husband and I say this stuff to each other all the time "Have we only been married nine years? Jeez it feels SOOO much longer." Then we fall on the couch laughing and make out.)
Back to my point, your late teens and twenties are such a great time in your life, take advantage of it! THIS is the time you get a free pass where no one will try to enroll you in treatment programs or counseling sessions, do the stuff now that you can't do later on. I mean, sure, you COULD go out to clubs until 2am and knock over water coolers when you're 52 but I can tell you you'll look pretty stupid. At 21 it's acceptable, at 52 your family is holding interventions for you and people are saying, "Who's that old guy? Shouldn't he be home with his family?"
When my husband and I started dating he was 29 and I was 28. We'd both lived an entire life before we'd dated and when we met we were just ready, there were no questions of "what if" or "but I haven't done____ yet" because we'd both done what we'd wanted and had already had all those crazy/stupid/questionable adventures and we're just ready. I know my husband is who is he because of all those crazy things he did in his twenties, as I am. Do I have to worry about Doug wanting to go out to bars until all hours of the night or trying to find himself at hipster coffee houses? Nope, you know why? Because he already DID all that stuff, and guess what, after too many adventures and wrong roads gone down, with some right ones thrown in, he found himself, and thank God for that, because shortly after that he found me, and isn't he lucky? I really feel as though our marriage has benefited from both of us truly being grown ups when we got married. I'm happier than I could have imagined I would being married to him, because he knows who he is, and I know who I am and our marriage is stronger for it.
Now that we're in our 40's it's fun to sit back and reminisce about the old days. It's great to have those memories about the things we did in our youth, would I want to go out and do that stuff NOW? Heck no, but I sure am glad I did them, some good, some bad, but all learning experiences. They taught me a lot about who I wanted to be and also taught me about the kind of person I wanted to be with. You have to date a lot, and you have to be alone a lot too. Being alone is one of the greatest things you can do for yourself. It gives you confidence and an ability to really know yourself, without relying on another person to define you. This stuff is so important to your future happiness and to the health of your future marriage, if that's what you choose to do, again, no pressure.
The reason why I felt compelled to write about this is because I recently came across an old journal of mine from my college days at UCSB. I was taking some sociology class that required us to keep a journal of what college life was like for us on a day to day basis. I only have one word for this thing: Hilarious! I don't even recognize the girl who wrote this thing, and if it weren't for the familiar curlicue writing I would almost swear it wasn't me. I was 19, a freshman living in the dorms on campus, first time away from home, fresh out of high school (from a town I'd lived in my entire life), playing on the school softball team, trying to pass my classes, enjoying the fact that I could ditch school if it was sunny and go to the beach without my parents getting a call from the principal, you know, living the dream. This is what I loved so much about college, no not the beach (although that was freaking great, I could see it from my dorm room window, beckoning me) it was the freedom I was given. It was like, "So you're telling me I can go to bed whenever I want, I can eat chips for dinner, and not clean my room, ever, and no one will reprimand me? Yahoo! I LOVE COLLEGE."
It was a great time. It's like one day you're a kid, then the next you're an adult..... It really is the first day of the rest of your life. You just have to learn to harness that freedom, something that took me two years to do.....see, who says academic probation is a bad thing. It taught me to simmer down now and get my ass in gear. "You don't have to make your bed if you don't want to but you do have to DO THE FUCKING CLASSWORK OR THEY WILL FAIL YOUR ASS." Ah. Point taken.
So, this journal. In it I go on about all the kids in the dorms and how much "partying" they were all doing all of the time. If you're not familiar with UC Santa Barbara it's one of the top party schools in the country, or at least was when I went there. Sure I'd been to parties in high school, I even got drunk once or twice AND, gasp, even used to smoke cigarettes but it was nothing like what I was to experience in the college dorms. In the dorms people were drunk A LOT, some all the time...definitely overdosing on their new freedom.
I saw, and inhaled, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowlingly, my fair share of pot, ate uncooked Top Ramen for dinner (it's oddly tasty) so that I could afford a sixer of Keystone, saw friends drop acid, drove them to go buy ecstasy, and once babysat some friends in the mountains while they went on a mushroom trip. It was very entertaining, me and two other girls agreed to be the caretakers in case anyone tripped too hard, we sat up with them all night while they stared at the trees (which they said were crying and sad about humanity.) Those harder drugs always freaked me out, I stayed with the soft stuff, but I still had fun and got to experience all this on the peripheral. I got pretty good at bringing my friends down from bad trips. I wonder if I can put that on a resume...
College dorm life was much different than what I was used to and I think I'd probably watched too many after school specials as a kid because, according to my journal, in the beginning I thought everyone was "in trouble" and "had a serious addiction problem and should seek help". Talk about dramatic. I apparently was even giving out pamphlets to my friends on the dangers of drinking and smoking! Pamphlets! Ha! I don't even remember doing this but according to my journal, I did. My friends all were gracious and took the reading material even though I'm sure they threw it all away as soon as I left. I just cannot picture myself doing this, oh brother, it's amazing I have any friends from those days left. I just was not used to the partying and this new "lifestyle" and obviously went a little overboard on my judgements. Sorry, everyone, I only judge you because I care.
The journal was a really fun read, I went from Miss Goody Two shoes trying to sign my friends up for rehab to passing out fully clothed only to wake up with a penis drawn on my face. Okay so that didn't happen to me (some of my friends weren't so lucky) but you get the picture. By the end of my freshman year I'd fully embraced the college life. But that's a good thing, I got to experience all that stuff I was supposed to experience, and after too many fun "adventures", you realize that maybe this isn't something you want to do for the rest of your life. But if I HADN'T done it, maybe I would always be chasing the dream of "what if"....the dream is always more glamorous than the reality, but if you don't do it you don't know that. Do this dumb shit when you're young so that when you finally DO settle down you can be content with your decisions and don't have to sit around wondering. At least this is what it's done for me. You change so much in that time frame of 16-27, and if you marry too young you're still going to grow and change, but you both may not grow in the same direction. And I'm not saying you have to go out and party, but go out and do SOMETHING, travel, chain smoke in coffee shops while writing your novel, move to a different town, live on your own, dye your hair orange, just do something!
If you DO get married young my hope for you is that you are able to find that person you can go out be adventurous WITH, so you can both grow together, on the same path. I know this can happen, I've seen it, sadly it's just kind of rare. Too many times couples grow onto different paths, which is natural, but soon enough find out they've become totally different people and ultimately end up splitting. You change so much over the course of your youth, don't limit yourself, find out what's out there and what your place is in it. THEN settle down and be that person.
Now that I'm a parent I think of the future possibilities for our son, and all the things I would love for him to do. I want him to go to college, I want him to travel, I want him to make some iffy choices and as long as he calls him mommy everyday, I will help bury the body. But if he ever tells us he's getting married at 19 I will lock him in his isolation pod and take away all of his micro chips, flying cars and stuff (because this will be way in the future) until he sees my point of view.
Okay so maybe I won't be that harsh, but I will STRONGLY recommend that he waits....Of course he'll be allowed to do what he wants...and if he wants to get married at 19 so be it....but only if we approve of the girl....or guy.....whatever....we're cool....just as long as they're not an asshole, and that they live together before they get married (imperative), they have to have traveled, and have gone to college, and have lived in big city at least once in their life.....jeez I have a lot of requirements..
So kids, love is great, love is grand, and if it's real it will wait for you. Go live your life, and when you DO decide to settle down remember to pick a good one. It's not easy to be with the same person day in and day out, and you'll probably want to kill them sometimes, but just make sure your desire to make out with them on the couch is just as strong as the murder thing and you'll be fine.
And don't forget to floss.
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