I was eleven years old when I decided
that I wanted to get married and settle down. Unlike most of the guys
I knew I grew up loving women well girls at the time. I did not just
like looking at them, I respected them and cared about a number of
them.
I often found myself feeling
conflicted when I was in middle school. I liked one girl because of
one reason but liked another because of another quality. I was being
told everywhere that I looked that marriage was one woman and one
man.
Never mind the gay equality movement
that was just crawling from it's infancy and into national attention
at the time. Never mind that every church or religion told me the
same thing yet in the back of my mind it kept bothering me. If you
are a religious person you see love as a gift from God. If you are an
atheist you see love as a natural bonding mechanic of our species.
Regardless love is wonderful but when
I was growing up it was very important that you only loved one way.
If you did not then you were treated differently. This of course is
society's answer to almost everything that does not conform to the
Status Quo.
The more that I felt the way I did the
more I realized that it did not feel wrong to me to love more than
one person. I never felt diminished or somehow less for loving more
than one person. If anything I felt more alive and happier.
As I got older I reasoned that this
whole system of marriage and living is completely the opposite of my
own feelings. I still supported marriage at this point however I saw
no logical reason to not be able to share that with other people.
After all if you and your wife or husband find someone that you can
love just as equally as each other then why not let that person share
your life.
When I was young however my views were
discouraged and in some cases abusively rebuffed. Everywhere I looked
all I saw were people divorcing and lives falling apart. My
grandfather used to watch a show every day called divorce court. I
hated that show because all it showed was the destruction lives and
personified in my mind every reason why the modern model of marriage
just doesn't work.
Our lives are busier than ever now and
we drift apart so easily from one another with everything that we do
just to survive. People get married because they fall in love then
things just don't turn out the way they wanted. Marriage is for all
intents and purposes disposable now. Don’t like your wife get rid
of her for another . . . don’t like that one well shoot ditch her
and get another.
Instead of fixing the problem or even
really trying to find out a what the problem we harp about the rights
of this group or that group. We scream loudly about how this or that
is corrupting our youth and destroying the sanctity of marriage. We
spends millions proselytizing on television, and radio about banning
this or that because it challenges the morals of a book.
We should be looking at what really is
causing this problem and no one wants to because it points the finger
of fault right back at ourselves. We focus so much on what the worlds
definition of love is that we strive for things that are unrealistic.
We somehow expect fictions to become reality simply because we want
to feel the way someone felt on TV.
Love can be fallen into headlong or it
can take years but the point is you should love who you want when you
want and be willing to love that person to the ends of all existence.
If you are married then remember always love first. Never rise to
anger that which can be soothed with a kiss.
I spent almost 25 years of my life
never speaking of my views about what a family really is to me
because the only people I could talk to about it had not even entered
into my life yet.
So I went along with the norm because
I was afraid to just love the way I felt was right. Do I regret my
marriage, never a day in my life. Do I wish I could do things
differently and maybe live things out along a different path. . . no
because I know that the healing that has happened in my life would
not have happened in any other way.
So what is my view now in my near
middle age? I believe a family is anyone you can love like a brother
or sister. I believe a husband or wife is any man or woman that you
and your spouse can love as much as one another for nothing else
would be fair. I believe that if you find these things in your life
you should love and be OK with being loved.
So there you have it, the heathen
speaks and with only words that seek to heal a world that hurts
itself in the interest of conformity. Love those who are worthy of it
and keep close those who love you.
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