trepidation

If you never take risks than you will never have anything worth losing.

Apparently it is the cool thing to get engaged this semester.   No joke.

I went to a fireside and it changed my life.  I've decided to decide...if that makes sense.
If I am not engaged or married by February 1, 2013 I am going to start my mission papers.  Until then I am going to be perfect.  Every day.  It is a commandment to be perfect.  I will fail.  I will fail massively every single day, but I will never have to do it alone.

Recently I have been heavily advised to "be ready to meet your eternal companion".  I've never been that girl who plans her wedding.  I did, at one point, write in my journal exactly what reception I would do for each of the 4 seasons.  Those plans have since slipped my mind.  I honestly cannot remember a thing about them.  Sure, I've done all the young women activities where we made lists of qualities for our future husbands. But in reality, all of the qualities I wrote were qualities I possessed.
A wise man said 'If you love someone you take them as they are.  You do not take someone and try to change them because when you do that you are imposing your own qualities on them.  That isn't loving the other person, that is loving yourself.  You don't want to marry yourself.'

One of the only crucial qualities in a relationship:  You must have the same ultimate goal. 
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints takes care of this for us.  Our goal is to be as God is.  Our goal is exaltation and eternal life.

I have never loved.  Well, that isn't true.  I love all the time.  I love many people.  I have never been IN love.  See the difference?
Why?
It isn't because I don't like guys.  It isn't because I have never ever been asked out.  It isn't because I intimidate people.
I am not ready.  As much as I would like to be, I'm not.  I am so comfortable being simply "Aria" that the idea of belonging to someone is not always attractive.
I don't understand how love works.  I am a Love Idealist.  I don't understand how people go from one person to another.  I don't understand why people have 'summer flings'.  I don't see the point in entering a relationship that has an expiration date stamped on it.


I need to move.  Not literally because I absolutely love it here.  I want to stay as long as possible.  But I need to go forward.  I need to be ready.  I want to understand.  I am so young in so many ways and I need to jump.

Only by having everything to loose will you gain everything.  Fear is the greatest indicator that we are on the right path.