Long Lasting Love.

The new topic of conversation at the moment seems to be focusing on love. It seems like something has switched, a year ago my friends and people around me would not even humour a conversation including long lasting love or marriage and now it seems to be all the talk. Whether moving in with someone, getting married to 'that special' someone or whether to say I love you for the first time, it's all I have been hearing. It's not like we are old, so I don't get it. I think what it comes from is our parents, most of whom had found each other, or their partners of time by 18-21 and were well on their way to marriage. So now, our generation is trying to duplicate that without consideration that over 50% of marriage from that generation ended or will end in divorce.

I don't even know what I really think about marriage any more. Personally I see marriage as something highly important when kids are involved, I would struggle having kids without marriage because I think life should be simple for a child and marriage makes a family life simple for a child to explain to their friends etc. That and kind of for selfish reasons, I want the same last name as my child. But then again, to me marriage should also have nothing to do with children. I come from a family of 'marriage for the children' and none of those marriages have turned out the best. I think it should come down to more than love too. I think marriage is a life long commitment and the love we know of as teenagers isn't the long lasting type. Waking up every morning and still wanting to see his face is long last love, knowing every single little thing is long last love, knowing what he is thinking even before he even starts to say it is long last love. Long lasting love is friendship, companionship and a genuine ability to spend time together. I think marriage is just a commitment of security and even a little bit of a business deal. I will never get married for any one other than myself and my partner.

I know my views on love and marrige would seem some what odd to most people. It's because I refuse to agree with the 'fairytale'. You need to make your own fairytale. I wouldn't know what a real, happy, successful marriage would look like if it hit me in the face. I come from two generations of women who had gotten divorced, half of my extended family are divorced. I refuse to beleive everyone only gets one 'love of their life'. I understand some people (possibly even myself) find one person and they are that perfect person for them and they will get married and live happily ever after, but I think some people get mulitple 'great loves' in their lives. I am not one to reside to the idea of a large pretty wedding, where I spend $20 000 for a whole bunch of my family, friends and people I know come and 'ooohh' 'ahhhh' at the fact I am dedicating my life to someone. I have many better things to do with that money, like travel.

Anyways, I don't really know the point of this one. It is just a popular 'topic of discussion' at the moment. Something I am finding myself surrounded with. I think I am over it now. I have thought about it, wanted it, talked about it for so long. Since I was a little girl it was such a big deal to me because I rarely saw it done right (Don't worry Vanessa, you and Danny, my great grand parents and Lisa and Sid are the exceptions). But now, though still very important to me, its become something so private and something I want for just me, not for everyone else to see. My nanna often tells me how 'modern' I am in my beliefs (she finds it shocking someone could be 19, owning a house with their boyfriend and NOT have children :O), yet how traditional my views of marriage are. Isn't it funny what a difference in generations make, because obviously by this rant my views are a little odd.