My baby brother Christopher is officially off the market. He proposed to his girlfriend Heather a few weeks ago and they are planning to get married June 3, 2006.
I'm happy for him but at the same time worried that they are making a mistake getting married so young. Yes, he's 23 years old and that isn't young for someone in Utah but in reality it's young. I can't really talk because I met Jory when I was 20 and I knew the moment we met I was going to marry him. We waited 6 years to get married only because Jory never planned on "getting married". I agreed with him that we didn't need the certificate to solidify our commitment, but somewhere deep inside me the girl came out and I realized I really wanted to have "the day" to celebrate our love with friends and family. So the night of April 20, 2003 standing on top of the rock in Moab, UT I "proposed". Had we married in our first year together, I'm sure we'd still be married but we have both changed and luckily we've changed together.
My brother has never lived on his own, never held a job from more than a year and hasn't paid his bills without help of our mother. I encouraged him to stay at home as long as he could but he forgot the 2nd part of that suggestion, save his money. Also he's been engaged before to a psycho and he couldn't see through his "love" for her. He's had 4 serious girlfriends and the last three he's been ready to marry. I'm not sure where my brother got his ideas on love and marriage because the theme in my family is to have long term relationships before getting married or not getting married at. One of my brothers was engaged for 10 years and then it ended, had they been married that would have meant a divorce. Another brother was engaged for 4 years when that relationship ended, he later met his wife and married her after a year. My other brother had a relationship for many years and last I heard he was dating a new girl (as far as I know).
It's looking like he's going to take my advice and get an apartment in January (needs to get (mostly) out of debt) and live on his own until they are married. I personally think he needs to live on his own for at least 6 months then have her move in, live together for another 6 months, then get married. This however isn't an option since they have already booked the honeymoon for June 4th.
I believe that my older brothers and I all learned from growing up in a divorced family to take our time making sure we are with the person we want to grow old with before we marry them. Maybe it's because he's the baby of the family and he is the "ours" in "Mine, His and Ours" so technically he didn't grow up with divorced parents. I'm sure it was a different world for him because he shares blood with both sides. We never looked at him as being any ones half brother and don't forget he's the youngest. I don't know what the reason is, I just hope that everything works out for him and Heather and I fully support them no matter what they do. Heather does have one thing going for her, she's the first girlfriend we've all liked.
Congratulations Christopher and Heather!
1 comment:
I don't know for sure how much is perception and how much real about how I think about younger generations (since I have spent a good deal of time with people from a wide range of ages). It seems like many people my age, and especially people younger than me are (on average) more apathetic, irresponsible, and out of touch with reality than a few people my age and especially those just a little older than me, but not too much older because those people are too far out of touch with reality in other ways...
If I'm correct, then I hope Christopher turns out to be more like us! (At least they did make the wedding for about a year away, but then again they booked the honeymoon already...)
I was 23 when Athena and I met. We were friends for a year before we ever dated. (Because we both knew from the beginning that if we started dating each other, we probably wouldn't stop, and we wanted to time that right.)
Back then we were still partying very hard, but I always knew that if the responsibility of love and a family came up, that I could rise to the occasion and be responsible enough to try and be a good father and partner. (I don't think many people probably saw Matrim when they pictured my offspring.) So when the time was right, Athena and I started dating. And it's a good thing we were patient because (little did we know) we were going to start a family soon. Over the course of 4 years we built our relationship and our family with love, determination, commitment, communication, and luck, etc. And now, of course, we have gotten married. (To finally get the paper saying it's official.) (Also, Athena was the first girlfriend that my family liked.) ;)
Stories like ours and you and Jory's don't just happen by magic though. You have to have a desire to match the magic. Hopefully Christopher and Heather have that and get to experience the joy of real love!
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