Free to Love

During our discussion yesterday, we shared our ideas about why people in our culture today get married, and what the relationships are like for people who get married at different ages. We also talked about the supposed "timeline" that we all have in the back of our minds that dictates the "appropriate" order in which we are supposed to carry out our lives. It was suggested that people who marry young in our culture today feel trapped in their marriages as they grow and change; however, for me, it is just the opposite.

While many people today choose the typical route of going to college straight out of high school, finding a job, and only then beginning to think about getting married and "settling down," I instead stayed in Manitowoc after high school, found a job, and spent time with my then-boyfriend and now-husband. For me, love was and is a priority. We got married almost three years ago, and it was only then, with the support of my husband, that I decided to quit my job and return to school.

For me, and I hope for anyone who is with the right person, love and marriage has been a truly freeing experience. I am free to be myself, and I am free to take big, sometimes scary chances knowing that my husband has my back. The experience of being a married college student has presented its own challenges at times, but I embrace them knowing that my life is on track, exactly the way that I have chosen.