Being Married

I was thinking about all the pressures young orthodox women face to date, and to date in the right way, and to date the right guy, and to marry the guy who fits all the rules in the book and should logically be adored by all. I was also thinking of how skewed our perspectives on relationships often are. I was particularly thinking of a friend of mine who told me she'd never consider a younger man for reasons mentioned below, and of all the people who keep asking if they can set me up. Funny thing is that when I ask who the guy is they had in mind, they often tell me they didn't have a guy in mind. They just wanted to know if they could set me up. So I tell them no.
All these frustrations were bumping around in my head, until they somehow articulated themselves in these words.
___________

Despite all the hype that surrounds it in the Orthodox Jewish world, I'm not so interested in getting married.
I want to be married.
See, getting married views marriage as a goal to be a achieved. It's about you getting something that you want to have. Being married is about having an active relationship with another person.
It isn't about getting the life that you dreamed of, or moving on with life, or placing yourself in the right social circumstance. It isn't even about settling down and having children at the time when you want to. So many people get married because they want to start having children. This makes your spouse a means to an end; a tool by which you can accomplish your goals. The relationship is primarily about taking. It is no longer about the other person. I've heard many women say that because they want to have children they wouldn't marry or date a man who is younger than they, because they'd have to wait for him to finish school and be able to support a family.
I don't care.
I'm looking for a husband, not a sperm donor.

Marriage is a relationship, not a task to be accomplished. Nor is any other stage of life. Life is a process. Life is dynamic; it changes. I change with it. The more G-d shows me of the world, the more my mind and heart and self flow from one state to another in a dance where each step is my response to an opportunity or a challenge. I am not looking for myself anymore. I am just dancing with life, and as I dance I get to know myself better.
Life is one long, exciting, dynamic, dance so I want to live with someone who can dance with me. Someone who will be open and encouraging, supportive and understanding of my unique step. Someone whose dance will complement mine. I believe G-d placed such a man in the world for me. He may be ten years younger than I, and if he is then I will wait ten years for him.
I won't marry a man I love less so that I can have a child with him that I will consider mine, but not his. I wont marry a man I love less so that I can remain on par with my friends in life.
Instead I will marry a man with whom I can live, and go through life so that in ten or a hundred years from now when all my opinions have changed we two will still be dancing, weaving our steps together between the walks of life.

9 Marcheshvan 5773