All Mixed Up

The barn was decorated, tables set. Everyone was buzzing around getting things prepared. It was a typical scene for a wedding. The bride wore a beautiful white dress adorned with ruffles and a flower that was embellished with glistening jewels. She wore her grandmother's pearls. Her hair curled and a sparkling little princess crown. She had all the trinkets the wives tales tell us to have. Something, old, something new, something blue, and her father had just dropped her sixpence in her shoe. Nothing that went wrong that day mattered because she was getting married to her high school sweetheart. Just like her momma, she hoped to be with this boy as he grew into a man and into old age. She loved him. The wedding flew by and it didn’t even feel like she was there. It felt more like an out of body experience. Was there even a party? The young man and woman said their “I do’s” and signed their marriage certificate with giant grins on their faces. Neither knew what was in store for them.

Many little girls dream of walking down the isle in a embellished white dress, holding a bouquet of their favorite flowers, to a man who loves them dearly. They dream so much about this, they are not always prepared for what actually comes with it. I know I wasn't, not at 18 especially. Why do we as a culture sensualize this out of date ritual? Why is everything always sugar coated, just like our wedding cakes?

Once you get past all the fluffy decorations and sugary icing what is truly left? The underside of a cake is never really pretty. It is a bunch of ingredients mixed together and made super uncomfortable forged by heat into this sponge like substance. If cooked right it is sweet and delicious. If cooked wrong or ingredients are not just right, it is dry, tasteless, and crumbles apart at the slightest outside stimulant.

Marriage can be compared to the cake. Many ritualize the act and go through the motions but inevitably it was not baked with love. Leaving the marriage dry, tasteless, and ending in it crumbling quickly. Divorce rates today are higher because we don't take the ritual seriously. People are in to much of a hurry to bake their cake, they don't take the time to measure out the ingredients and make it with love.

We allow the idea of something rule how we view others. Today the dating world is a swipe left or right. What happened to walking up to a person and actually speaking to them. Hello, My Name is (insert name), I think you are beautiful/handsome. Can I take your out for a drink or coffee sometime? What happened to courting one another. Instead, you swipe left or right, you meet at some public location, and if it goes well you go back to bone each other and y0u expect a relationship to blossom from something like this? Or maybe we don't expect relationships and are not even interested in them anymore. The sanctity of marriage has become a piece of paper, a title, and nothing more.

If you need the wedding dress, if you need the certificate, if you need the cake to prove your love. You may have never really love the person in the first place. I have more respect for the people who prove their love each day through actions. Take a moment a write a list of why y0u love that person. Pledge your love and life to them because if you truly plan to grow old with them, you will. Mix your cake right. Understand that it takes time, it takes passion, it take a choice to love one another each and every day. A ring, a cake, a dress, a baby, none of these things represent a marriage, a true relationship. That paper you sign only binds you by government standards. If you are not willing to put the work into your relationship like the baker did your cake or the seamstress did when embellishing that fabulous dress you put on you will never be able to look back at it with pride. Instead it will crumble, it will fall apart, and you will be left with pieces of a broken home and heart.

I guess what I have been trying to explain is that we need to quit allowing specific views to rush us. Rushing into our lives only makes for ruin. We must choose each day to love the person next to you, flaws and all, and truly take the time to understand them. Kiss slowly and passionately. Love deeply. Stich together your life with love and experiences. Throw aside the traditional views, throw aside the modern views, and take time each day to actually get to know the person in front of you.