on wednesday i celebrated my 10th wedding anniversary. this is the longest single relationship in my entire life and the time has flown by. it’s not been a cakewalk, there have been many ups and downs but we’ve got through them and we’re going to keep going. when i first arrived in the US; two years after our actually wedding; i talked about how as much as it seemed like, our relationship was not going to be a fairytale.
i mean that in the most positive way, society seems to set this expectation that once your significant other woos you, sweeps you off your feet and nuptials are over, you live happily ever after. you can but you have to work at it. there is no short cut. there are going to be bad days, there are going to be worse days, and there will be arguments, this is to be expected. but there will be days that are so amazing, you will wonder what you’ve done to deserve something so spectacular. the key is to remember the balance. you have to work on this amazing relationship every day. don’t go to bed angry is good, but to wake up and remember why you fell in love is better.
my 30s have been my best decade to date and i think a lot of it has to do with my relationship. i’d like to think i’ve grown and gotten better as a person, i could also be delusional. i know i am happier and i’m finally comfortable saying it out loud. i’ve enjoyed the last 10 years – through the sickness, the health, the poorer, the richer, the sadness, the happiness and i’m looking forward to continuing to remember why i love this woman every day.
After close to a decade of disenfranchisement, I have the opportunity to vote in the 2012 US Presidential election and by my thinking my choices are severely limited.
Even when I lived in Trinidad I found it difficult to vote along party lines and in the last elections I had a chance to participate in, I ‘wasted’ my ballot with none of the above pencilled in. I long for a representative system that pays more than lip service to representation. I remember reading about a prefecture somewhere that appointed representatives in a jury duty type system – you get called up, you serve for two years, at the end of the term there is someone new. limited opportunities to get entrenched and greedy.
In what is fundamentally a two party system, both sides have become entrenched and greedy. I’ve observed previously that in order to get elected nationally you require a vast amount of money and in order to get that money you’re going to have to start compromising. Either in the beginning by whose money you accept or once the election is over, what is owed to your major contributors.
Currently the Republican party is attempting to find a candidate that they believe can beat Barrack Obama. Looking at the candidates that remain I’m yet to find one that appeals to my values as a voter or doesn’t completely scare me with their beliefs.
