Cactus Tree

Up until college, the goal put into my life was to get a husband. Good grades and a degree were good, too, but paled in comparison to a diamond ring with a house and kids.
After coming out, clearly the priority of marriage fell a few notches. The idea of permanently settling down was still a goal, as though such a thing would prove my worth and heal all the instability of m life thusfar.

It got to the point, when I was 20-22, that I feared I had some flaw. Most of my friends and my girlfriend at the time had been proposed to at least once or had even been engaged. This hadn't happened to me, so something must have been wrong with me, right? This may be difficult to believe now, but I was very feminine and domestic then, still seeking out a permanent anchor.All that was missing was the anchor - which was one of the reasons why I took it so hard when that girlfriend left me to engage someone else.

Through clusterfucks aplenty, cutting contact with my mother, learning more about my father's history, studying artists who had traveled between the MidWest and the SouthWest, forming independent relationships with my "spinster" aunts, and seeing the misery of my prematurely tied-down peers, things clearly changed. I began to be grateful that a proposal had never happened. Regardless of the answer given, a proposal shifts the situation. Could a couple really go on as normal with a "no" reply? Relationships have ended even with an "I need to think about it."

About a year ago was when I finally took life by the reins - if I'm gonna make it WEST, I have to make it happen. Which means the very things I once considered fulfillment are what I must prevent now. It seems foolish to vow permanence, particularly of relationships, because that can't be controlled. People who attempt such allegiance to me, frankly, scare me. It's like they're trying to hold a slippery, writhing fish by crushing it.

Promises of always seem to value the stability of the relationship over the quality of the person. And end doesn't necessarily imply rejection or abandonment. Although it's cheesy and cliche: if you love someone, let hir go.