A Blog on Marriage

I just finished watching Laws of Attraction with Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore and I sa-wooned. The first thing I did after that last credit ran and I could pull myself up off the coach was run into the Study to get on Amazon and buy the movie. The shipping cost me more than the movie itself but it is well worth it.

That is the kind of love I want. I remember trying to explain it to a friend last summer. It's the look of love. When a man looks at a woman and you just know... whether she knows it or not... that he loves her. And when she’s not around and he gets that half smile and you know he has to be thinking about her. – The Look of Love.

I want that. When I fall in love - whenever that ends up happening - I want it to happen like that. I hope to high heaven I'm not as blind and idiotic as Julianne (bless her heart) but even if I am I want it to happen like that. I want my future someone to be attracted to me so much that everyone knows it when I walk in the room and he just can't take his eyes off of me.

It is so easy to get caught up in the drama that is dating in Provo, Utah in all it's glamour and glory. And yet love really isn't that complicated. It's all in the look. I'm sure that most people who watched this movie or who will watch it in the future found it cheesy and predictable (aka my father :) ) but I love the way he looks at her. The way he is so in love with her every action and her every word. He is intrigued by her. When he looks at her you can see in his eyes that he wants to spend every moment with her because he knows it would be better with her than without her. He wants to marry her. I want to be mysterious... predictable only to a point. Predictable enough for him to be able to know what to get me for Christmas and Birthdays and the in between present giving days (my mother taught me about those) but mysterious enough for him not to know if I'm going to ask him to hold my hand while we go skydiving or while dance out under the stars one night.

People keep telling me that I probably will marry someone quieter than I am - someone more mellow in order to balance out my personality. I used to get so upset by that because - yes, I could be happy with that but at the same time it still felt like settling. I wanted a man who could sweep me off my toes and who would keep me guessing as well. Someone outgoing and funny who would drag me out of the house at any given moment to dance in a thunder storm at the height of its raging. Maybe someone even more outgoing than I am. But maybe that's not what is most important after all. Tonight I don't care either way. As long as he has the look of love in his eyes when he looks at me. That is all that matters.

After all, it's all in the look.

On top of and even more than the look though is the meaning of those rings on your left hand after you promise to love and cherish one another from that point forward. I'm terrified of divorce. I will openly admit that. It scares me to the core. It can be devastating and heartbreaking and it makes me cry. As a result I can often become terrified of commitment and at times I have a hard time letting people in and trusting them with me on the most basic of levels. Marriage has been a scary and daunting and over talked subject for years to me. And yet after I finished watching Pierce love Julianne marriage wasn't so scary anymore. And those rings meant more than potential hurt and tears. They were the symbol of hope, of love, and of mutual commitment to a better future - a together future. They were more than just metal on a phalange – they were the beautiful outward expression of the inward unity they had with one another and the underlying commitment to one another that bound them wherever they were.

I, Abby Holyoak, do in fact someday want to get married. I want to have a man put a piece of metal on my fourth phalange on my left hand so everyone will know that I promised to love and cherish him and only him and I want to put a piece of metal on that same number phalange on his left hand so everyone knows he promised back. And when we look at each other, I want to have the look of love.

Goodnight, dear void.