Marriage, schmarriage!

I've gotten to that age where I'm getting invited to a number of weddings. It started with my second cousin Dawn's wedding in May. Then it was Steven's cousin's wedding, then one of his best friend's wedding, and the last one is in about a month. This one will take place in Ireland and is the wedding of his other best friend's sister. With all these weddings Steven and I have been feeling the pressure: "When are you two going to get married?"

The thing is a) I definitely do not want to get married NOW, b) I'm not sure I ever want to get married, and c) if I do get married, it is not going to be some lavish affair.

I don't want to get married now because I have too much stuff going on with my life right now. Some would call this selfish. The thing is, for his own reasons, Steven isn't in any rush to get married either. My main goal for the next two years is to succesfully enter and finish a masters in counseling program. This is about all I can handle for the moment. I take school very seriously, probably too seriously for my own good. I'm not going to go about applying to grad school in a half-ass manner. The program I'm looking at right now usually has about 50 applicants which get narrowed down to a field of 25. Out of that 25, 15 are picked to be cohorts in the program. I already feel like I'm at a disadvantage because my undergrad is nowhere near the same field as the grad program. Getting into the program will be a challenge, not to mention that if I do get in, the program I want is extremely intense. [Ha, what grad program isn't intense?]

I don't believe in religion or that God would care if I am or am not married, so I wouldn't do it for that reason. I also, deep down, kind of think that marriage is just a legal institution. I love Steven. I don't think my love will become any stronger because we've legally linked our two names on paper. We're already tied together, and I don't need a ring, a piece of paper, or a fancy party to tell me that. I don't want to get married because society tells us that's the next step. It doesn't have to be the next step. We can be committed to each other and not be married. It's that simple. I will say that if I ever decide to have kids (that's another blog post completely), I will get married for them, because in this society it's easier to be married and have kids than to not be married.

The other thing is, and no offense to anybody who wants a large, fancy wedding that they've dreamed of since young girls, but that is NOT what I want. Neither Steven nor I like to be the center of attention and standing up in front of a room full of 200 people is not my idea of a fun evening. I personally would want a very intimate affair of just me and Steven somewhere with two witnesses. This would probably upset some friends and family, and maybe even Steven, so I could see us having a slightly larger affair, but definitely not more than 50 people.

I also have decided that I would like to keep my name. People have insinuated to me that I am yet again being selfish by not taking Steven's name. What's the big deal? Why do I have to give up a piece of my identity? I've been Julia R**** for the last 25 years. Why do I have to give that up? Why doesn't the man have to give up his name? Why can't we both just be who we've always been? Quite honestly that's all I want.

Of course, when I tell people I want to keep my last name, they inevitably ask, well what about your kids? First of all, don't assume I want to have children. I may or I may not. The thing is, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. We're adults, we're smart people, it's our decision and we'll figure it out.

So, what's been keeping you busy?

When people hear that I am volunteering at the Crisis Center as a Crisis Line Counselor they get this kind of funny look on their face. The look is somewhere between amazement, admiration, confusion, with a tinge of repulsion. They often say,Wow, that’s interesting,” and not much more. They rarely ask why I’ve decided to volunteer there, or what it’s actually like to volunteer there. No one really wants to discuss it. They just skirt right around it, like I’ve dropped a bomb on the conversation. I don't think people like to be reminded that sexual assault is something that far too many people have to deal with.

That’s the exact reason why I decided to volunteer there. Sexual assault happens. It happens to 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men. Think about what that means. It means that whether or not they’ve told you, you know someone who has been affected by this problem. It is a rampant problem too, especially on college campuses. That is why not only do we first and foremost need to educate people about this problem, but we also need to provide support for those people who have been victims.

The statistics regarding sexual assaults are frightening, but they become even more so when it comes to people with developmental disabilities. If you are a woman with developmental disabilities, there is an 85-95% chance you will be sexually assaulted sometime during your life. What makes this even more unsettling is that a lot of the people with these disabilities don’t have the capacity to understand what is happening to them, or if they do understand, the capacity to tell someone what is happening to them. The fact that an individual would take advantage of another person like that, a person who they know cannot comprehend the situation or fight back, is sickening to me.

I’m really looking forward to this experience because I want to reach out and help people. No one should have to be a victim of sexual assault. No one should have to be a victim and suffer alone. People often are ashamed that something like that could happen to them. They often become depressed and isolated. Sometimes it helps just having someone supportive to talk to. What I love even more is that as Crisis Line Counselors, we’re trained to empower people. Empowerment is the best thing you can give a victim. That’s why it’s important the Rape Crisis Center exists, and why I'm glad to be volunteering there.

War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

I have been watching The War miniseries on PBS. It is fascinating and yet very disturbing on many levels.

First of all, I feel like there has sort of been this almost love affair with WWII in the entertainment industry over the last few decades (or maybe it has always been that way, and I just didn’t realize it). But since Schindler’s List I feel there’s been this bombardment of images relating to WWII; unsettling images, really, that previously would not have been shown to the American public with such gory, gruesome detail. There was Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Band of Brothers. Do we notice a theme here? Thanks Steven Speilberg (and Tom Hanks!)

I guess I believe on one hand that it is necessary to see these images. To be reminded that this is what war is. That it’s terrible and horrifying, traumatic and harrowing. Some of these images will turn your stomach, or at least I feel like they should. This is the part that I’m struggling with. I feel like since I’ve been bombarded with these images since I was 11 or so they don’t even really faze me anymore. It is like my mind is saying, “You see one terrible thing, you’ve seen them all.” I’m totally desensitized. This appalls me! I feel like no matter what, when I see these images I should be affected on some deeper level. Instead all I can think is yeah, yeah, that’s terrible, war sucks, what can you do? So in the end, I feel like maybe it is worse to see these images all the time because then they don’t hold as much meaning or have quite the same effect. It’s not like seeing these images can change anything that is taking place today. It can remind us of our past, in hopes that we don’t repeat it in the future, but that’s pretty much it. We, the little people, can not do much to stop our government from doing what it wants to do.

Which brings me to my next point, the other thing this mini-series has brought to the forefront of my mind is something that I’ve always known, but just keep pushing back. That is how our government has kept us perpetually at war for hundreds of years. Yes, yes, this is what Orwell was getting at with 1984. It is a basic fact we all know, but when you sit there and you list the wars we’ve become involved in since WWII, you realize there has never really been a time when our military hasn’t been drawn into some snafu or another. I feel like at least with WWII we were fighting for something. We were coming to the aid of Europe as a whole and not some country that happens to have a commodity our government cares deeply about.

That in turn ties into a discussion we were having about PTSD in Abnormal Psychology last night. When the WWII veterans came home we threw them ticker tape parades, patted them on the back, and made sure they would have jobs when they came home. When the Vietnam veterans or the Iraq war veterans came home they were/have been largely ignored. When our government gets involved in wars that the American public doesn’t support, it’s the soldiers who suffer the most.