Welcome to JAWC v2.0, now with 24% more emo! 1% more than last time! Marriage... wow... they say that marriage is an institution, and those who get married should be institutionalized... hehe... Still, to accept the concept of marriage... to devote yourself wholly to someone for the rest of your life... it's a very romantic notion... and yet although I buy into the idea of marriage, the monogamy and love it entrusts into your partner... it's hard to accept it based on what I've seen on past generations and how it's been handled... sorta puts the idea onto a shaky foundation and that fear and unsettling feeling comes from the horror of the "what ifs"... Cold feet?... heh, sure it sounds like that... but has anyone looked past the fear of cold feet into the underlying reasons behind why a person who initially proposed would become so nervous as to want to postpone or altogether avoid the union?... No, no one actually bothers to wonder what the hell happened in the past that would freak this person out so much that they'd go AWOL right at the crux of the occasion... Regardless.. my rant isn't about the fear... that's only a piece of it... in actuality the purpose of this rant is to address what marriage represents... two people who against all odds found each other and love each other enough to forget what the world says and to legally say, that they are each others' property. And don't go saying that you're not the others property... no one sinks in that much money to be a free spirit... that's just stupid... those rings and vows should mean something dammit... you belong to eachother and no one regardless of who they are should get in the way of that... neither friends, family or that jackass who you work with that says, "I give it two weeks" and then goes and chuckles like a donkey's braying... I was told that marriage is like a big basket where each person holds up a side of that basket. In that basket are the things you both hold dear, love, trust, all the things that caused the two of you to get together. The purpose of the basket is that the two of you are equal members of something more than one of you can handle alone... if one were to falter the basket would fall and it would become damaged. marriage is keeping that basket safe, keeping all the things you cherish safe within it... keeping that love intact. I truly hope that no one drops their side of that basket, because although you can pick up the side again and journey down the road of life, that basket has been damaged, and even though you'll put a patch job on that basket, things won't be exactly the same... dropping your end of the basket isn't an option... sure you'll falter a bit, but hopefully you'll catch it before that basket loses a wicker... because no one should destroy something that you both cherish and hold dear. Congratulations... - Tiki Man