The Ride

Sometimes I sit here looking out my gray framed windows, at the pearly gray sky and the changing leaves outside, the rain falling as a fabulous backdrop to the fall, and life just makes sense. When nothing else does, the fall also brings me back to who I am, the rain makes me feel alive, and I can't imagine life any other way. When I think that there might have been another path for me, all I have to do is look at this view, and look around my beautiful little apartment and I know that I'm home, that this is where I am meant to be right now at this moment.

I think that life throws you into situations to make you stronger, and that obstacles and disagreements might make you hurt, but in that hurt, that's living. Tears and smiles, and laughter, and heartbreak, that's all part of the ride. Emotions that we feel that we shouldn't, or that make more sense than anything, it's all part of who we become and what we do.

I am approaching a huge milestone, a moment between myself and the boy I fell in love with so long ago, a moment I thought I never wanted, a moment that I thought would tear us apart and a moment I thought would change everything. Well it has, it has changed everything already, but it's not the change I thought it would be. I never was the girl that dreamt about getting married, never the girl that wanted a family of my own, or a little white house with a picket fence. I've always wanted to be me, to hold up what I think is right and to my life the way I that want to, without criticism or doubt from anyone else. I have chosen a different path and I'm no better or worse for it, but I am stronger. I am stronger for standing up for something different, but afterall, I am different. I am someone unique, as we all are, someone that follows dreams and that only wants a life that's enchanting, that allows me to stop at moments in the rain like this and smile at the beauty around me.

I never wanted to get married, but in the end, there is no reason that I can't put my own spin on traditional vows. And when it really comes down to it, tradition is something I hold dear, even while I know that parts of me are not traditional at all. But it's the contradiction, the juxtaposition that makes me myself, that makes my life my own. So why should my marriage be any different, why should I lose sight of who I am, when I can make all my own and live my life with the man that lets me live the way I want, and all the better, with him by my side through the ride.