Focus

I'm having an exceptionally difficult time focusing on my schoolwork today. Not sure why, but oh well.


This morning I had an awesome conversation with my mom and marriage/dating/etc. Not the first, and most certainly not the last, and I'm sure the whole marriage thing has come up every day in the last month or so.


It's so funny. I remember being twelve. I had one of those "YW Wedding Booklets", printed it out for myself and everything. I had a whole huge list of things that I wanted in a guy. I described how my husband looked, how my children would look, how many children I would have, how they would act, what they would wear, what job my husband would have, the temple we would get married in, where we would live, everything.


In recent years, all of those subjective requirements have been tossed out the window. Now, of course, there are some things that haven't changed.


For example, we WILL get married in a temple. That is one of my requirements. 


But, really, does it actually matter if it is in the Washington DC temple specifically when the same ordinance could be performed in the Rexburg, ID temple? Exactly.


There are other requirements too, which I'm not going to mention here. 


But back to my twelve year old state.I had this incredibly fantastic, romantic idea of what marriage and family life should be.


I'm more of a realist now. And I'm not saying that in a bad way. Here's what I mean:

1. Happily ever afters do exist. I know that. But it takes hard work to get them. You are going to have fights and arguments. The honeymoon stage of marriage won't last very long. That comes with living with a person. If you (and by 'you' I mean my future husband) lay your dirty clothes on the floor in the morning, I could deal with that for a week, a month, maybe even a whole year. But there will be a point that I can't take it anymore. See what I mean by work?
2. Kids are hard to take care of. Holy goodness. I partially came to this realization because I'm the oldest child in a large family. But part of it came from an experience I had this past week. On two separate occasions I babysat a 12 year old, a 10 year old, an 8 year old, a 6 year old, two very hyper 5 year old's, a 3 year old, a 1 year old, and a very fussy 7 month old. All at the same time. Holy goodness. Kids are hard work (and that's not even the pregnancy/ childbirth stage). 
3. I hate cleaning. But I know I'll want a clean house.  Which means that I will clean my fair share of puke messes and pee stains. Not looking forward to that, but eh. That comes with 'kids are hard to take care of'. 

Again, don't take this the wrong way. I'm excited to get married and have a family. But I know that I need to make decisions wisely and follow the promptings of the Spirit in everything that I do. To be real is to be wise, I suppose. And I am very grateful that I have parents who have shown me that, and who will be there to guide and support me every step of the way.


=D tuba.girl