Choices

People make a lot of choices through out their lives, and when making choices they usually look for support from the people around them on the wisdom of their choice. On the other hand, there are also times when people will continue with a choice despite the fact that it gains no support - and in some cases only stirs opposition. When I made the choice to get engaged at the age of 21 years old it was with the support of my friends but not of my parents. When my fiancé and I decided to wait until I graduated to get married, putting our wedding date about two years in the future, it was with the support of my parents but not of my friends. Making both choices made me feel torn between my desires and the desires of the people around me, but in the end I did what I thought was best. Neither choice was completely supported by the people around me, but that didn't matter. When making important life decisions it's best to go with how you feel about the situation.

Getting engaged was something that my friends had actually been pressing me and my boyfriend to do for awhile. We'd been going out four and a half years when we finally did get engaged, and some of my friends thought that was a ridiculously long time to wait. Although we felt the pressure of our friend's judgments we waited until we both felt like we were really ready to make that commitment. To us, being engaged is just as serious as marriage, and we felt that although we knew we wanted to be together there was no need to rush. We waited until we were absolutely sure. Our friends thought that our long period of dating meant that we might not really want to be together because we were taking so long about solidifying our relationship (so they thought).

On the other hand my parents thought that we needed to take a break from each other and see other people. They thought that we'd committed too much and too early in our lives. And our desire for their approval was one of the reasons we may have waited so long. That, and we were pretty sure what our friend's reactions were going to be when we finally did get engaged but wouldn't want to get married right away.

We were right. Our friends were very confused when we got engaged and told them how long the wait was going to be. Their question then was, "Why did you bother to get engaged? Why not wait?". It was a little frustrating after being pressured for several years to hurry up and get things in motion, that they would suddenly see our side to everything. Especially since we never hid from them that we would want a long engagement.

Although at first we said it would be a two year wait, some of my friends succeeded in making me think that the extended waiting period was silly. Why not just wait a year, a much more reasonable amount of time to them. Sitting back and thinking about it, a year did seem like a rather long period of time and I thought that it might be a good idea. On the other side of me were my parents urging me to graduate first, more than urging, they said they wouldn't pay for anything in the wedding unless I had graduated. It went back and forth between my friend's pressure and my parent's objections. Finally I started planning it for a year away, also planning my education so that I could be finished by that time, and just not telling my parents yet. But then I started feeling uncomfortable. A year is really not that far away - especially when you've already been going out for five. In fact, a year is a very short amount of time. Not to mention that I realized I wasn't sure if I could be done in school by then, and that was as important to me as it was to my parents.

In the end, I decided that the two year waiting period was what I wanted to do. Breaking it to my friends wasn't easy - talk about opposition! - but they accepted it in the end, because it was my choice to make. Well, mine and my fiancé's, but throughout the process he pretty much just accepted whatever I decided. I felt happy with both of my decisions, on when to get engaged and when to get married. They were the right choices for me, despite the fact that I got divided opinions from outside sources on both. In the end, it's what I wanted that mattered, and that's what came through.