Really, it's none of your business, but respectfully, I'm looking to grow a tree.

You have a big nose... And you're rude.  Oh and by the way, it's really none of your business... really.  I mean REALLY. :)

Let me explain.  It's when you go to your cousin's wedding and afterwards at the reception-y part your older family members and friends are all sitting there and suddenly they decide to attack.  I don't think it's premeditated, but with these types, one can never tell.  Everyone is having a nice time and wham, some evil person looks directly at you and asks that inevitable question "So, when are you going to get married?"  or the other one "So, when are you going to have kids?"  I want to saucily retort with some snide comment like "When you learn some manners" or "Well, since all of you are divorced and bitter, it seems like that plan of just grabbing the first person you found and marrying them really worked out well for you, didn't it... all three times" or even "I guess you'll find out when you get an invitation, if you're luckily enough to make the guest list, but based on your current behavior, your chances aren't looking very good."  However, my mother taught me some manners; namely, respecting your elders... even if they are rude.  So, I just smile and wish for a hole in the ground to open and swallow me whole.  Seriously, though, it's not like I've turned down tons of offers.  I do not have a swathe of prospective husbands lining up at my door, holding resume's, begging me to procreate with them.  But if I did, I still don't think I have to talk to you about it.  You make me feel like a failure... "well, Rachelle, you're getting old, don't you think it's time you pop out a couple kids while you're young enough to keep up with them?"  I already feel like a failure.  I really don't need you and your giant magnifying glass to see my own flaws and shortcomings.  Maybe, though, it's not that I'm a failure or that I possess a fatal flaw.  Maybe, just maybe, I'm waiting for something wonderful.  I used to work at a nursing home, in the kitchen.  It was awful, terrible, possibly the worst job I've ever had.  Ewww. Gross. Yuck; but I digress.  At this nursing home, there was this gentleman in his seventies in apparent good health that visited EVERY DAY.  Granted, I only worked there for just a couple months, but in that time, he was there every single day.  He arrived before lunch and stayed into the evening.  A stroke had devastated his life, but not his love.  I don't know the whole of their story, I imagine them living a happy life in a quiet cottage, raising children and growing love.  Consistency, commitment and conversation.  Something substantial.  I know what they had was not commonplace.  It was built over sleepless nights.  Trusting, when love was all they had, that it would be enough.  Committing, that when they didn't feel the passion, that they would walk on, hand in hand, because they had made their choice.  Believing, that if something terrible happened, the love, that they had grown and nurtured from a tiny seed to a giant tree, would shelter them under it's branches and they could cling to each other and love would cover them and keep them.   From my perspective, it worked.  A stroke was no match for their love.  It had debilitated the wife's body.  Trapped her spirit.  But it had not conquered their love.  Their love pulled the husband's car into the parking lot and walked with him as he pushed his wife's wheelchair outside, so she could enjoy the lovely summer afternoons.  It was a love of gentleness, trust and faithfulness.  It was true passion.  Not intense uncontrollable sexual desire, but rather the only option.  To them, they had made their choice... and they didn't look back, contemplating other options.  In the face of tragedy and challenge, their love was a tree.  Maybe, I'm looking for someone who wants to grow a tree.  Someone who has the gentleness to nurture that tiny seed.  Someone who will be there to water it and watch it grow.  Someone who will be there in the summer when the leaves are full and gorgeous green.  Someone who will be there in the autumn, when the leaves put on a fireworks show and then fall and blow away.  Someone who will be there in the winter, when everything is bleak and bare and dark and cold.  Someone who will stay until the spring, because they know the leaves are going to grow again.  Maybe I'm waiting for someone who wants to grow a tree.  So, that is my answer.  I'll get married when I find someone I want to grow a tree alongside, hand in hand and heart in heart.  You can be fine with that or you can go on wishing I would jump into something with someone who wants to eat chocolate and strawberries and jump into oceans of this moment and recreate all the mistakes you made that led to your current bitter miserable state.  Because they say, misery loves company.  But you can keep your misery.  And I guess I try and hold on to my tree growing dream... just a little longer.  Respectfully yours in respect and kinship...