Hi! It’s me! Lily!!!

…  what am I supposed to say?

What am I supposed to do?

I spent a lot of time today talking to a lot of people.  I even talked to Jack’s parents.  I talked to Sabby and Dave…  I even booked a little time with the pastor.

Everyone had advice.  Some of it good, some of it, well, advice…  but at the end of the day, everyone – to a one – said it was ultimately my decision, and no one could make it for me.

They’re right.  They’re very right.  And…

It’s easy to make decisions when you’re deciding simple things.  Deciding to go to school in Japan was a fairly simple thing.  It’s an easy mistake to rectify, if it turns out to be a mistake.  I can just… stop going to school in Japan.  Problem solved.  But Jack isn’t that easy.  Jack’s… another person, and another person I care about.  If I mess this up, well… I’m not the only one who’ll get hurt.  And maybe Jack’s already hurt.  I don’t know if he’d tell me, not really.  Because he cares about me, too.

And now I’m just sitting here, in my room, and the tears are threatening again, and they have been all day.  I don’t even really know why.  Isn’t it supposed to be a happy occasion?  Someone wants to marry me – and he wants to marry me.  Yes, of course his reasons are complicated, but never once have I thought that at least one of the big reasons isn’t that he loves me.  Of course he does.

And that’s what makes it more complicated, because it takes more than love to make something like this work.  That’s something nearly everyone told me today.  Love doesn’t pay the bills.  Love doesn’t keep you fed.  Love may keep you from killing each other when they annoy you, but that’s about all it really does.  It gives you a reason to stay together, but it solves nothing.  And children….  I mean, what would having a child mean, now?  I know we can wait, and probably would even if we were to, but…

I don’t want to say “no”, and I probably won’t.  But I don’t feel like saying “yes” is right either, at least not now.  We get married, and then what?  We head off to different parts of the world and then have to struggle to spend time with each other?  How could we even make it work?  That’s the question.

The question I don’t really have an answer to.

This is the life of an adult, I suppose.  When you’re a teenager the problems are simple.  Go to the mall, or to a big box store?  Get good grades, or sleep in a little, if you’re allowed to?  But there’s no good answer here.  None at all.  No matter what answer I choose, I don’t know if it’s the right one.

And maybe that’s the right answer, in itself.

But that doesn’t make this easier.

I need chocolate.  And Sabby’s chest to cry on.

On the plus side, this was a surprise to Jack’s parents.  They’re going to have a talk with him.  I hope they’re nice about it.  They’ve been good about things, so I think they will.