The universe won't. shut. up.

I don't know what's going on around me lately. I swear, the universe is yelling at me and it won't stop. It's sending all sorts of messages to me and it's trying to tell me what to do - and I don't like it.

What am I talking about?

Pull up a chair and relax - this might take a while, because I have a feeling that I might end up rambling a bit.

We all know that I have said many many many times that I will never get married again. I even went a little farther after I wrote that post, and wrote one the next day with even more reasons why I won't do it again.

And so far, I've stuck to that. I still say that I will never get married again. Twice was enough.

But you know, I have this amazing guy in my life. And I love him. A lot. And we talk about things. A lot. He knows me better than just about anyone else in the world, and he knows how my brain works (which is scary). Sometimes he can even tell me what I'm thinking even before I realize it.

We talk about things like we are married. He's looking to get rid of his van, and even found a truck that he can get in its place - but he wouldn't make the decision until I saw the truck too. Whenever there's a big event coming up, we talk about it with each other before we make the decision to go either alone or as a couple. We run things past each other to get input on whatever it is almost constantly. We've talked about moving in together, and we've even looked at a house before (although that ended up not working out as we had hoped).

But I still don't want to get married again.

Apparently, the universe has other ideas.

Every time I turn around, there's an ad like this one on my facebook page. Now, I understand that the ads are usually related to things that you've talked about or things that you've searched for - I did a search the other day for flash drives, and I'm getting flooded with ads for those now. I can understand that in a "Big Brother is watching me" kind of way - because I've searched for flash drives. But I've never searched out engagement rings. Or wedding rings. Or rings. Or anything related to weddings or marriage or anything. Yet, these ads are there. All. the. time.

Of course, we still run into the random strangers that assume that we're married. It happened to us again the other day - I don't even remember where we were this time, but again - it happened.

The kids - they know how I feel about marriage in general. But they still throw it out there occasionally. "Hey Mom, when are you guys going to get married??" Of course, they usually end up grounded after broaching the subject. (Kidding.)

Then last night.... The Dude came over, and we were both hungry. So he decided to run out and grab us some food. I told him that I didn't really care what he got so he left. When he came back with the convenient economy-sized bag of food from Taco Bell, he made some comment about "Taco Bell and lifestyle choices" or something like that. I asked him what he was talking about and he told me just to sit down and eat my food and I'd see it. So I sat down on the couch and started pulling the food out of the bag. I grabbed a handful of the sauces and glanced at them, and then remembered that they started putting little sayings on the labels.

Yeah, little sayings. That's it.

Ok, Universe - what are you trying to tell me?

The Dude and I got a good laugh out of these - and of course I had to be goofy and immediately post it to my facebook page. Apparently people know me better than I thought because no one really jumped to conclusions about it. But anyway, he and I were talking while we were eating and watching a movie, and he said that he bet that there was some schmuck out there who actually used Taco Bell sauce packets to propose (do a search on YouTube - he's right). I told him about the two proposals that I've had in the past - one was with a credit card (in place of the ring, which we used the card to buy that night) and one was over the phone. Anyway, we joked about them, we laughed, and we let it go.

But I admitted to him later - and I'm admitting it now - that while I still don't want to get married again, I'm slowly getting used to the idea that it MIGHT happen eventually.

Don't get excited. We're talking years from now. There are a lot of reasons why we should NOT get married at this point - I mean, besides the fact that I don't want to do it. Yes, most of the reasons are financial, and that might sound selfish on both of our parts, but at the same time by keeping those financial things at the forefront, we are also making sure that the main priority - the kids - are provided for to the best of our abilities. We're still talking about moving in together and we're starting to make more concrete plans for that, but even that's not going to happen until next summer (unless one of us happens to hit the lottery or something).

So I say to the universe - I hear you. I get the message. Shut up and let me figure it out on my own time, ok? I don't need you to poke me or prod me or give me little hints. I understand. The walls are coming down, but they don't need to come down all at once and bury me under the rubble, ok? Let me get used to the idea first. Give me a few months years decades time.

At least I'm willing to admit that it might happen. That's a step, right?