Transitions

It's official. I have transitioned from being a single girl to being an engaged woman! Engaged - the word that every girl can't wait to boldly proclaim while holding out her hand for inspection. I must admit that as a single young woman, I looked forward to being married and spending my life with someone I love and who loves me. However, rarely did I consider the time in between being single and being married - the engagement. I know it's an exciting time to plan every little detail of the "perfect" wedding, to find the "perfect" dress, and celebrate the fact that the days of singleness and being the third wheel are over. It's a wonderful time in a young woman's life. But I never thought that it would be like this...The engagement is a time of transition, a time for change. And change is sometimes hard. Very hard. Going into the engagement, the young couple in love has made a big change in their relationship and decided to be more serious and exclusive. Their relationship continues to undergo changes and more intense scrutiny as they prepare themselves for matrimony. Not only are they changing as a couple, but they are changing as individuals. They are realizing that it's time to grow up, to mature and take on the additional responsibility of another person, of sharing everything with that person and elevating their well-being above your own. But perhaps the hardest transition of all is...the in-laws. Having one family is hard enough; then you get engaged and you get another family, with people who have different personalities and communication styles. This is difficult for me. It's hard learning to fit in and to love them like a family; to learn what they like and don't like; how they think (or don't think) and to try your best to understand them and pray that they understand you. I didn't think it would be like this. I didn't know what I thought it would be like, but it certainly isn't an easy road. But then again, change is hardly easy in any situation. I must remind myself that when I said "Yes!", I agreed to these changes, perhaps unknowingly, not fully understanding what I was in for. But it's official. I have transitioned to a period of ongoing change, for better or worse. Yet somehow I feel that I have a better understanding of what marriage is - growing and changing together. In the words of Robert Browning, "Grow old with me! The best is yet to be."