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Well y’all, I didn’t get married this year. Again.

 

No planning was done, no invitations were sent out. I didn’t walk down an aisle (except at the grocery store, which honestly might be better?). No white dresses were bought, or bouquets tossed. My “One Day” Pinterest board remained unused, only continuing to collect crafty wedding decor that I am utterly unequipped to ever actually execute.

In fact, I’m on a solid 31 year streak of not getting married.

Truthfully, getting married, or at least getting a boyfriend, was one of my only goals for the next year, for years.

Getting married was the ultimate, and whatever happened along the way was just there to pass the time. It was fluff I thought God threw in just to pad the story. The only story that I thought really mattered: my love story.

Obviously, that goal has never been achieved to date, and this year?

 

I’m honestly ok that it didn’t happen.

 

(somewhere a younger version of myself just fainted).

Oh I still want to get married. Don’t get me wrong about that. I keep that wedding Pinterest board alive, and my eyes are peeled for good looking men without wedding rings (I can spot one a mile away, like an Olympic sport). But I’ve learned that the “stuff” that happens every year along the way...it isn’t just “fluff”. It’s my life, and I don’t want to spend my days wishing it away, waiting for one part.

And while I know that one part is an important one, and I truly want to see it come to fruition, I’ve come to find that there is also so. much. more to my life.

 

So much more, like this past year, when I:

• Said yes to grand and much needed adventure (Check out my Instagram or this post for more on that!)
• Formed new friendships and found community, something I’d deeply felt the absence of the year before
• Was forced into a new job that I now love, after a year of struggling in my old one
• Learned to choose joy over negativity, something I never thought I was capable of
• Found confidence in solving problems and navigating tough situations on my own, even when it was uncomfortable or I didn’t feel equipped
• Traveled more than ever before, broadening my worldview, and gaining a better understanding of people different from myself

 

I can’t look at this list and say it’s just fluff.

 

God didn’t use what happened this year just to pad the story or buy time until the real story unfolds. He used it to stretch me, and give me experiences that I never even dreamed of having. He filled holes and closed gaps that had caused pain in years before, and He grew me more into who I was meant to be, situating me and aligning my life for what’s coming next.

Sometimes I wonder if one day I might be writing a different blog post, about how I DID get married, and what I know now is that it won’t be the beginning of my story like I thought.

 

My husband will join a story that’s already been taking place.

 

And we’ll continue writing it together, but the chapters before he entered will still remain, and boy will they matter, because they weren’t just there to fill the space. They were my life.

This year was one of those chapters, and it wasn’t just a way to pass the time. It had purpose. It mattered. And whether married or not, next year will too.