On Perpetual Singularity

I remember sitting at a Thanksgiving dinner when I was 17 with my family and my high school sweetheart and fielding the question from my grandfather, "So, Cody, when are you two gonna' get engaged?"

You should have seen the faces and silverware drop when I answered, "I don't believe in the concept of marriage."

Asked by everyone to delineate, I continued, "I have no problems with committing to being exclusive and honest. But how the heck can I promise someone that I'll love them the rest of my life when I have no idea where or what or who I will be in three years, much less ten years, much less in fifty years? I've got a lot of plans and whole lot of things I'm going to do in this life. And I don't want to pretend that I know I'll want to be with someone forever when I can't possibly know that."

16 years later, and I've never been engaged nor married. And I still agree with the thesis I had at 17. (Throw kids into the mix, and the thesis has problems -- but I don't have any kids either.)

But while I wouldn't change my life experiences -- good, bad, wonderful, and horrible -- for anything, I sometimes wonder if my gramps had a point.

One of my best friends married one of my ex's the day after graduation. I've always admired this friend. Having practically raised himself after his father was sent away for drug crimes, he took his wife and went to put himself through college. Never having been a stereotypical great athlete or great student, he worked harder at football than anyone I've ever seen. He took his wife with him to a D-1 college and worked 40 hours a week, took 18 credits per semester -- and made it as a walk-on on the football team.

His wife got pregnant soon into his collegiate career, so he quit the team and focused on supporting his family and getting his degree. He's now a coach and they have a beautiful family. To be clear, I'm not sure he's happy. But he certainly seems to have done what he set out to do. And I certainly admire him still. And there's just some beauty to the purity of his approach.

Meanwhile, I've experienced so much. I had several wonderful girlfriends in college. I spent the first several months in New York without so much as a hug (cried when my mom came to visit and hugged me...finally realizing that I'd been so long with out human touch). I've since had many great girlfriends and random experiences with incredible, beautiful, and successful women of all kinds of backgrounds.

But I bleed in every one of those relationships. I give up part of myself even in the most casual relationship. And I always feel so saddened and depressed when a relationship ends. Especially a serious relationship.

I know a lot of my married friends envy my status. And frankly, I don't envy theirs. But it doesn't mean that I've done it "right". We all sacrifice, since we can't have our cake and eat it too (at least if we want to be honest with our lovers).

P.S. Man, one of these days I'm gonna have to post some outright positive thoughts and introspectives on here! I think Katrina's got me bummed out.

P.P.S. It's not like I just got out of a relationship. Last one ended months ago. Just had this on my mind this morning.

P.P.P.S. I used "singularity" incorrectly on purpose.