(potentially) last trip to Ossining = longest trip ever.

I have never seen so much traffic as I did today. But that's okay, because I will likely never have to drive to Ossining again.

I found myself a hypocrite today. I mean, it's something I toss around from time to time, but today...today I was aware of it. Some Facebook friend (read: person I know but not close enough to consider a "friend") has gotten engaged about a month ago, and every status message I have seen thus far since then has been about either a) her fiancee, or b) something relating to the wedding. Now, I know that if they are engaged they are happy, so why am I so cynical about the whole thing? I mean, every time someone gets engaged I think how it will probably fall apart in the end anyway...and why not? so many marriages do. There are a few people (two of whom read this, and they know who the are) who I honestly believe will remain in happy long-lasting marriages, but so many others I can honestly say I believe will fail.

That being said, I could easily see how someone (read: the chick) could get swept up in the hype of wedding things, ignoring the rest of the world. But I resent it, and I'm not sure why. It's as though the expectation has created a high with nowhere to go but down.

Where the hypocrisy comes in: I've no idea who I am, or who I've been the past week or so. The idea of the eventual (and sooner than later if it should actually come to be in September, which still seems to me like an idea only I am absolutely enamored by) co-habitation of myself and Chris in his apartment has blocked out negativity. It feels...fake. Yes, I had made a vow to abolish the negativity in the first place, but that's exceptionally easy to do when there is something waiting in the wings that's...a step forward, a progression. It's clouded my judgment, I think, and made everything else out to be next to, if not completely, insignificant. And that's what I think engagements to do people. They are so focused on this one good thing, this one progression, that everything else in the world could matter less. But what happens when it's over? The novelty wears off, as with most things. It seems almost like a natural process. Boy & girl start dating, it gets boring, they decide to move in together and it's exciting again. Then it gets old and boring again and they get engaged so it returns to exciting. Marriage follows until that as well gets to be just as mundane, so they pop out a child. I don't think anyone thinks about it along those terms, but I'm of the belief the subconscious is aware of this underlying need for something new. Then again, if not for that, when would be the time for a "next step"? How does one know they should or that they are ready? Maybe that's why there's so much failure in the world: we're just guessing. And we're not very good at it.

(P.S. I bike-rode the fun way at school: through the woods. Here's what it looks like:)