That thing thats going around.

Ok, so there's this bug thats going around, and a great number of friends of mine seem to be catching it these days. I guess it's an age thing so it kind of ties in with my Alive at 25 post a couple of days ago, but it still seems to provoke a sense of amazement. Marriage. Woooooooooo.
Now Im not about to set off on a diatribe regarding the evils or benefits of this sacred institution, but I guess I do have a little to get off my chest. I remember a trip to Ottawa that I went on almost ten years ago where I met a very dear friend of mine. She and I stayed up all night talking on the trainride there, and ended up spending the next week more or less always hanging out. We had very similar thoughts (read: mild distaste) for the institution of marriage, and in that peculiar mid teen way built our fortress against it to some degree. I went on in the oncoming years with a feeling of kinship both for her, and many of my other friends who were all safely held by the bulwark of reluctance. Reluctance to let our youth and freedom (for this is what the unwed embodied for me at the time) be bowed and shackeled by the chains of committment. Till death do us part.
Then my friend got married.
Thuroughly deflated, I was forced to re-examine my views on the subject, but for about two years after that event I instead felt slightly quashed by feelings of inadequacy, doubt, and though I am now lothe to admit it; betrayal.
OK, so maybe a little diatribe.
Now, slightly wiser for my rambling thoughts, Im finally over my adolescent raging. I've come to accept my friend, and indeed all my friend's happiness in marriage, something I before thought was squashed with the ending of the honeymoon.
I found out today that another of my old friends has departed the lists of bachelorhood, and this time I couldn't help but smile as I read their letter. Time goes on, Friends get married. Hopefully we all stay happy. That's the dream anyway.