Better Together

"Happiness is only real, when shared."

So for those of you that haven’t heard I recently got engaged to be married. Someone asked me the other day, “Do you mind if I ask why you chose to get married?”

I thought that was a good question, so here are some thoughts I had on relationships.

I have to admit, I am still a skeptic on marriage. That said, I am a full on believer on relationships.

For those friends who have been here for thick and thin, I assume you already know this, but I like friends. If I had to define myself as any one thing, I would say this about myself: I am just a person, who at one time, wanted to have some friends and tried to go out and make some. The rest of my life is just little details.

Sidenote: Friends is my most common label on my blog. And here are some posts I had on friends:

I'm gonna soak up the sun
Same as it ever was
New writers
All my friends (probably my favorite)

Thinking back on my friends from Needham, my friends from Kenyon, my friends from Wyoming. I miss them, and I love them, but the frustrating thing is that none of those friends are a part of my life now. Sure I talk to them every once in a while, but I don’t get to engage with them on the day-to-day scale. Basically, I don't get to sit with them, drink some coffee or Guiness, or eat an entire can of Pringles in fiftenn minutes, and talk shit about life, which is really all I ever want to do.

Here in Portland, I’ve been working on building relationships, and it’s been great, but even here in grown up life, inevitably, people move, people take new jobs, people attend new schools, some people just want to uproot their lives. On top of that, in about a year, I’ll probably be setting up a whole new life somewhere else.

And after that, I’ll probably move again two or three more times. And every time, I’ll have to uproot my entire friend support system, say good bye to another batch of friends, and struggle to meet more people that I can become friends with. I’m assuming this doesn’t get easier with time.

So I guess I think of marriage as a kind of agreement. It’s like making a friend, but with the agreement that you’ll be friends forever.

You’ll have the courage to be honest and confront problems you have, forever.

You’ll get on each other’s nerves over little things like the way the towels are folded, forever.

You’ll have fun playing together, forever.

You’ll just enjoy sitting together talking about the minutia of life, forever.

And I guess that’s what I wanted. I just wanted a friend that would be willing to put up with me, and spend time with me, forever.

from ken

Are you thinking about something? Write about it and post it here! Email me! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com