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Since I got engaged, people have been repeatedly asking me one question: "What are the post-engagement changes?"
Well, here I am, providing you with a detailed answer I am sure only a few will waste their time and read it; because no one likes unnecessarily prolonged sentences containing too many wild, distracting commas; very irritating, persistent semicolons; and a surplus of radically and needlessly descriptive adverbs and adjectives — and the aforementioned quagmire of premeditatedly thought of, grotesquely worded, and playfully jotted down phrases is exactly what I'm talking about.
The first change I have noticed since I got betrothed is the amplified sense of responsibility I now have. I used to not give a fuck about anything. Words like repercussions, consequences, and regrets barely existed in my vocabulary; but now, these words are always present in my mind, controlling my actions and decisions repressively. I am certainly less rebellious now than I used to be before I got engaged. In other words — and it hurts to state this, but I guess that's how life works — I am timidly avoiding conflicts and uncalled for confrontations.
For instance, four years ago when I was working for a humanitarian organization, I had a terrible boss who was a clueless whore. She used to spend her time counting the calories she was eating and whining childishly about everything at work. I couldn't stand her life-sucking soul and had to confront her; and as a result, I got fired. I didn't regret it at all; I actually loved the abundance of free time I had for a few months. I had enough money to feed myself and take care of my bed-ridden father. Now, however, things are different. I've got a full-time partner; and soon, I will have a house to be established and a wedding and subsequent honeymoon to be arranged. I undoubtedly cannot afford to be jobless nowadays, not even for one month. This is just one example of that high sense of responsibility I have developed. Another example would be the more careful spending habits I now have, which are very contradictory to the earlier ones the earlier me had.
Another change is how life has suddenly become meaningful. Identifying a purpose of living had been a saga before I knew my fiancee; I am verily glad now that things have become lucid in terms of what I aspire to accomplish — I want to devote my whole being to the one entity my inamorata and I form.
At last but not least, and this is probably the only negative — or perhaps, according to a sane person's standards, positive — implication, being too happy at this stage of my life has resulted in a catastrophic loss of enjoyment drawn from sad songs and saddening music in general. This sounds weird, I know — and I know it may not actually be that weird if you happen to be one of the two close friends of mine reading this now; because you know who I am in my deepest depths — but I am a person who has been living by music for decades. Music, to me, has always been the number one source of joy, motivation, and entertainment; and the number one source of their oddly cherished opposites: misery, inaction, and dullness. I played one of my favorite sad songs the other day, expecting that I'd momentarily live within the melancholic lyrics, but I was surprised that I couldn't resist the urge to stop the song just thirty seconds after it started. I could no longer relate to the sadness in that song; I felt undeserving of listening to it; I thought it would be an unfaithful act to pretend that it meant something to me.
The best part about all this musical emotionalism — or nonsense, if it's a better way to put it — is that finally, after numerous years of deep thinking about the meaning of one of my favorite lines of all time in the history of songwriting, I understand what Kurt Cobain — one of my eternal Gods — meant when he said, "I miss the comfort in being sad" in the song Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle.
I really miss the comfort in being sad. Rest in peace, Kurt Cobain.
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