Thank you

Thank you complete stranger for ruining my day. Usually I am not one to let a perfectly good stranger put a damper on my day but lately people are seeming to get the best of me. I am stressed. Stressed about not having a job. Stressed about taking a national certification exam. Stressed about getting married. But honestly none of this is really a new contributing factor to my stress. I have been stressed for many months.....so stressed in fact that my neck hurts....like really hurts.....hurts so bad that even a 90 minute massage and graduating PA school can't relieve its pain.

So that brings me to the huge stress that is taking over my life at the moment. Today I looked at the little clicker that taunts me and it said 38 more days till marriage which automatically makes me breathe a little harder. We went to happy hour tonight (which really wasn't that happy) and it just seems that there are so many "nay sayers" out there. This lady (which had no credibility her self.....a divorcee and not to mention a recent breakup with her boyfriend who is 25 years younger than her) starts asking us why we think WE are going to be any different. Why do we think it is going to work? Well my sweetie pawned this question off on me and I answered best to my ability ( mind you to a drunk that really should be minding her own business) but apparently my answer wasn't up to Andrew's standards. Then he answered the question which really wasn't up to my standards.....which got both of us to thinking.......what the hell are we really doing? With all of the statistics out in the world what makes us really think we are going to be different? We love each other.....yeah of course what couple doesn't love each other. Is that enough?

We sure haven't made it easy on our self up to this point and it doesn't look like it is going to get any easier. Andrew is in the midst of starting a new business, possibly being jobless, I am starting a new career, new life, all while starting our life as a married couple. Ahhhhhhhhh. The thought of all of this makes me want to start yelling around like a crazy person. At one moment life seems so simple....love one another, always be on each others side, remember that life is way to short, and never forget why you fell in love. Well all of that stuff seems simple right? Ha.....well then you have to factor in rude people that sort of do have a point.....why are we any different and why is going to be any different than any other couple that says "I do"?


One can't help but factor in my families lovely statistic of divorce. Divorce runs ramped in my family and when I say ramped I mean it to the full extreme. For pete sakes, my great grandparents were divorced and that was before it was even considered acceptable. I was always worried that my families divorce rate would defer someone into asking me to marry them. I have talked to Andrew and it is definitely has crossed his mind. Especially when his HUGE family has a squeaky clean record of 1 divorce and my small family of 7 aunts and uncles (combined on both sides) have been divorced a total of 13 or so times (plus or minus a few). My grandparents on my dads side were the only ones that made it.

Now how is one family plagued with so much divorce? Is it the spouses that they chose to marry or is it them? Some joke and say that it is the Tays curse. The Tays women have been blessed as strong willed, independent, driven women. Well…….I guess this could be seen as a downfall as well. Because the attributes mentioned above could all be mistaken for as bossy, uncaring, demanding, etc. So I guess the first step is awareness. I am aware of my family’s track record. The next step is I want to break the streak. I look forward to celebrating all of my anniversaries and I know that it takes a lot of hard work. I know none of my family members went into marriage with the thought of getting divorced. I know people grow apart, people change, move on. I just never want to forget how I first felt. Why I was drawn to that person and all of the dreams, goals and hopes that we set out for in life.

Tonight was just one of the many occasions that I have been getting lots of unsolicited advice about marriage. On a side note really what are people thinking?? My favorite….oh what does your fiancé do? He is a golf pro. Rude stranger, “Well I hope for your sake he is not like Tiger Woods.” Why thank you rude stranger…..I hope so too. Ok back to the real issue at hand. I know that it is a lot of work. I know that it is a never ending compromise but I would like to think that I am up for the journey and for the challenge.