Domestic Goddess
Okay,
So we’ve established at length that I am something of a commitmentphobe. But let’s look at my other, non-relationship-related life choices to solidify that fact. I have moved four times, to four different cities, in the past four years. I have quit jobs and schools, switched majors, and generally never been able to make up my mind about exactly what I want ever since I graduated high school (and took a whole year off) five years ago. The past five years have consisted of building up relationships with the people I meet, then disappearing on them.
In spite of having co-habitated with a significant other before (though it was more out of a need to escape my mother’s house than a desire to build a future), I have really only ever thought seriously about “settling down” with one other boyfriend before The Scientist. That was, of course, the Big One. We had big plans- moving to Paris or Seattle or New York City (which of course I later did solo), living hand to mouth in some studio apartment while we “worked on our art”. Decorating the place was never even a discussion, it was going to be pure punk rock glory and milk-carton tables all the way.
Well, I was seventeen then. Now that I am an old maid in my twenties (one foot in the grave, so to speak), I have…matured a little. I’ve realized that maybe I like having a well furnished home to walk in to at the end of the day. I like my matching robin’s egg blue plates. I like my tasteful-yet-inexpensive Ikea bedframe. I like my stable, kind, generous, grown-up boyfriend.
And I like googling wedding dresses. This, to me, is the nail in the coffin. Since being invited to the website Pinterest by dear Bear, I now spend hours a night just oggling other people’s weddings. In a botanical garden? So elegant. Cookies and milk at the reception? adorable! Anthropologie’s new BHLDN collection? Can I wear more than one dress?
Add to that recipes, interior decor, BABY CLOTHES, and any other number of glossy images Pinterest has to give me, and I’m a goner. I may as well buy a minivan and start scrapbooking.
But in a way, I think this is healthy. I think it indicates me moving towards a new kind of fantasy- not, for once, one where I get to gaze at other men and think about how I could win them (except Ryan Gosling, of course, but the Scientist and I have an arrangement); but instead one where I look for happiness in beauty and living an aesthetically pleasing life with the man I have.
So bring on the puppy photos, Pinterest. Do your worst.
With love and a strange sense of assurance,
Bee
