New Beginnings!

I arrived in Catonsville late this afternoon. 18.5 hours and 1200 miles. This is the longest solo roadtrip that I've now done twice except this time it was freezing outside! I had some snow along the way too and am now crossing my fingers that I don't get sick.

Riding alone in a car on New Year's Day provides an ample amount of time to sort out one's feelings and thoughts. I had several in depth conversations with myself along with some awesome singalong song time. One of the biggest conversations that I was finally able to sort my feelings out on has to do with marriage. I even talked with my friend Ashley about this briefly. She had made a comment in a blog awhile ago along similar lines but equated hers to shopping for cars. Anyway ....

One of the biggest things that I find myself thinking about is the state of marriage in our country. All too often, I meet people who have gotten married recently and I ask them how married life is and I hear way too many times that nothing is different than before. All that's changed for them is that there is a piece of paper. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not passing judgment on anyone about their choices. I'm simply stating that I don't want this to be me. When I get married and someone asks me how it is I want to tell them that it's amazing and wonderful and more than I could have imagined it to be. This is why I refuse to live with a guy before marriage and I'm not going to engage in certain activities. I want my marriage to be sacred. I don't believe in divorce (except of course in situations such as abuse ..) and I never want to be another statistic. I have a tattoo for my grandparents that symbolizes their 50+ year marriage that was wonderful and strong and full of love. That's the kind of union that I want to have. I want to be that marriage that everyone wishes they could have.

Obviously this is a conversation that I will have with who I date. And in my head in the car it was much more eloquent but I wasn't about to write the level of detail and explanations that I had in my head in this post. All of that isn't really for the world to know ... like I said I want my relationships to be sacred and special.

Speaking of relationships ... I spoke with I last night. I get all giddy when I get a text message because I hope it's from him. It was a short conversation since he was on break at work and I had just checked into a place for the night. But at the end, he said how do they say? sweet? sweet dreams? :-) Yes, they say sweet dreams. I am so looking forward to seeing him. I have a ton of things to get done tomorrow but I secretly hope he offers to run errands with me. Fancy date, I know but we're still in the getting to know you stage. I don't need formal structure all the time. And what I'm liking about this right now is that it's a very personal private thing. Only five people know about him - my sister, the woman I live with, and three friends. It's not that I want it to be a secret, I just want to give it the best shot without the pressures from everyone about where it's going or what's going on. My sister already said something that I would have heard from a lot more people if more people knew. Other than her, my friends and Kathleen seem excited for me :-) You might be wondering why I'm writing all of this up here if it's so private? First of all, hardly anyone knows I have this blog and two, I haven't really talked about him or said his name so you have no idea who he is. It's still private :-P

But enough for now, I need to learn to be succint in my posts. No one reads the long ones!
Night!