It was a humid kind of sunny afternoon where you couldn’t help but sweat unless you were in the pool. I was not, since I was waiting for fiancé’s mum to pick me up any minute. We were out back on my dad’s patio while the younger kids played in the pool. I congratulated his friends, who had been married the weekend before. They told me how the ceremony went, showed off their rings, and thought it appropriate to share this advice with me:

“Don’t worry, it’s so much easier and way more fun the second time around.” They didn’t chuckle, which would indicate they were being sarcastic or joking, but looked at me with a sympathetic smile. As if I were embarking on a stressful wedding journey where I ultimately discover that he’s not the man for me, we’ll call it quits and one day do it all over again with different people. I excused myself for a refill of iced tea.

I was sitting on my front porch, leaning against the porch frame, eating strawberries and sipping my hibiscus tea. I was lazily waiting for the rain to come and brought an Oprah magazine out to keep me company. The first article I read described how the problem with most married couples is that they are so desperately clinging to the comfort of what’s familiar, they miss out on the beauty of change and discovery/ The key, it read, was to embrace that love is not forever, and that once we are open to change, we unchain ourselves from miserable lifetimes.

I now take this literary opportunity to wonder loud, “What the eff?” Who hardwired these people to be so pessimistic and why are they trying to counsel a young bride with impeding doom?

Will this be one of those things that I look back at when I’m 45 and scoff at how naïve and wide-eyed I was, believing in true love found at age 15 and meant to last forever? Will that be because I have grown more wise with age, or more cynical? And is that destined to happen at all or can I still please believe that, even as a twentysomething, love is something I’ve found and committed to and that is true and blind to the participant’s age?

This is isn’t a cold feet post, because I am excited to live in a chaotic household run by screaming kids with syrup in their hair, I know I’ll get a rushed kiss on the cheek while we both run in different directions—him to work, me to soccer practice. I am excited to know that at one point, I will go through something that I will later call the most difficult part of my life and that he will be there going through it with me. I am actually excited to see what the universe will try and throw at us, and to conquer each obstacle with unity. I foresee love and strength unwavering during the tough times, and celebration of the good.

I’m just wondering aloud, who do you think you are to tell me I’m foolish, naïve or setting myself up for failure?