As Suanie Sees It

Good friends, good beer, good food, good joint, good cheesy music, good lapse from reality. The good things in life should be as simple as that.

I’d been invited to a high school friend’s wedding in December. Of course I’m happy for her that she has found someone to be with for a long time; even my cynicism towards marriage in our society today has not changed my belief that marriage is forever. Having had time to think about this for a bit, I don’t think it’s naivety. More like my belief in the concept of marriage to be an institution of togetherness based on extended trust and good will; something sacred like two people promising to share the rest of their lives together and as it is, not one to be taken lightly. The inability to uphold the promises made is not a reflection on the concept.

By all means this is not a novelty thought, though it took me a rather long time to understand it. I fear that the last few years, young as I still am turned me into a drying prune, almost devoid of any capacity to be with someone for a long time. Once, the thought itself turned my insides over, leaving me in a shaking and shriveling ball. And it wasn’t anything more than the mere mention of ‘commitment’. I may have not been around for very long, but the things I’ve seen, heard and experienced didn’t leave me with much faith when it comes to other people besides family and friends.

But I may have been wrong all this while. People do find love, people do get married, people do want to settle down. Who knows what would happen five or ten years down the road? At this point in time, who cares? To know that there are people who stopped looking is good enough for me.

I think that may be the greatest fear. There will always be someone better, someone nicer, someone prettier, someone with all the same attributes as me, but up two or more notches. To know or to even imagine that whoever I would be with was still keeping his options open would, I think be a great blow to whatever confidence I had left. Was it something I did that made him look elsewhere? Was my initial judgment of him so off the mark that I brought this upon myself? And if that be the case, it doesn’t say much for my past, present and future judgments.

Knowing that someone else has this power to make you feel like the biggest loser in the next minute; that is not a very comforting thought nor place to be.

And he once asked me, what was I so afraid of.