Changed the label

In one week, I went from a 20-something bachelor to a 30-something engaged man. I don't know how I got to this state, but my decision to be here and make that change happen is a choice I made. It is a choice that I made with more conviction and confidence than any other that I have made in my life. 

Two things:

I believe that love is a choice. 
I do not believe that there is a "one" for anyone. 

I know that many cannot agree with either of these, and wonder then, how someone like me can be so assured of me making my move to ask a girl to marry me. That's okay. I'm not too concerned with what others think. I know what I know. I know that I could have resented this young woman years ago. I know what love is for me. I also know that there are other young women that I have met that had the potential to be wonderful, loving wives...and in return I would have given them all of me. But I didn't chose any of them. I chose the one that I did, and I am convinced that she is the best person for me. 

This young woman encompasses something divine for me. And I cannot resist something I believe to be a calling from a higher-power. Are there others who could have presented themselves to me in such a way? Perhaps. But that doesn't matter. Our paths have led us together and my heart, mind, and soul confirm that she is more than worth my life. 

My grandpa told me after I called him with the news that "Now the hard part begins."

Marry Church or Marry Woman

Every Catholic male ponders the question at one point or another: "Should I become a priest?"

I don't know what God is. I don't know what God is not. Putting him in the category of "knowing" and "being" are not even justice to His existence.

The sacrament of being called to the priesthood comes through Holy Orders. If I don't know God or how he really talks to me, then how would I know that I am being called? Priests, parishioners, friends, family--they all say "you have to listen! you have to be ready and able to hear God's call" Okay...

What does that even mean? Do I feel it? Do I stay my path until one day I find myself either with a wife and kids or at the pulpit? Something in me fights the idea of being a priest. I don't know what it is or where it comes from. Is that God? Is that me? If it's me, is it selfish preservation of the freedoms of a layperson? I'd hate to be called to be a priest and miss it because I wasn't listening...

Then again, if it was in His will, I'm sure it would happen. Right? I've never really been on the fence with the idea, as I said I do not wish to become one. To make the idea even more inappropriate, the advantages of being a priest are what I think of when contemplating the calling:

• Part of a sacred brotherhood that has lasted for centuries
• No financial worries
• Pride in duty/position
• Trips to Rome and the Holy Land
• Admiration of many people
• Closeness to God and more time to contemplate faith

I don't think that "perks" should be weight to tip the scale in wanting to be a priest. I feel as though it should be something deeper and spiritual. I've asked priests why they went through the seminary and ordination, and surprisingly, I met quite a few who spoke of it as being without "a calling", but instead that it "made sense" or "seemed like the right thing to do". Boy that complicates things.

I have never been able to see myself in the future. Even as a kid, I couldn't picture myself in my 20s. Now in my 20s I can't see myself in my 30s or even as an old man. I want to get married and have children of my own, but I can't see it. I can't see myself alone and yet I can't see myself aging with another person. All my life I assumed that this meant I would die young or something. But maybe it's just like that for everyone. People say they can "see it" because they can imagine it. I have done too many things for reasons that I don't know that I don't bother imagining. I don't even know how or why I did them. Will becoming a priest one day just happen like that also? Or will finding a wife and making a family just happen?