I never cared about getting married till around the time I graduated high school. However, growing up in a christian faith, I was taught that marriage takes three: Yourself, your partner, and god. I believed this with every fiber of my being too. For most of my life, I was a devout christian, who would argue with anyone of any faith that they needed to repent.

At one point, my older sister was engaged and planning a wedding with an athiest as their "minister". My mom and I both told her she couldn't get married with an atheist minister because "god created marriage and someone who does not worship god cannot bring people together in his name." My entire life, marriage was a biblical concept and you could not be married unless you were a christian.

When I moved out of my parents home at 17, I was still a devout christian and had a side quest to convert students at my college. But, college opened my eyes. I met pagans, witches, satanists, atheists, and so many other people from different religious backgrounds and I learned things from them. They were good people by choice, not because they feared burning in hell. They made me feel more welcome than any church did, more than my own family did. And slowly, the effects of the church's brainwash slowly began to fade. I started questioning what I believed.

Since then, a lot of beliefs have changed. Some of my beliefs I've always had, but a lot are new. My stance on marriage has changed a lot though. I did research on different religions and practices, some that are older than Christianity. I learned that marriage is not just a biblical principal, it's also a social construct, its a religious oath in many cultures. It's a sign of devotion to your significant other. Marriage has been around a lot longer than christianity. It was around in the peak of the greco-roman empire when the old gods were still worshipped. It was something that witches did and had rituals for. The norse pagans had it. The Egyptians had it. Marriage was and has always been and universal concept, different cultures just do it differently.

In modern day, as more people turn from religion, marriage is becoming more of a social construct to bring in benefits, such as tax benefits. Two years ago I would've scoffed at the idea of marriage belonging to other cultures, and now I'm rolling my eyes at my mother wanting me to have a christian wedding ceremony (because I am legally married but we didn't have a ceremony yet. We're saving that part.) I can't wait to tell my mom that I'm likely having a pagan/witch wedding to fit my religious beliefs now. Marriage may be social construct with religious undertones and symbolic for your devotion, but I'm still doing my way.

I've struggled with mental health for most, if not all of my life. I was your stereotypical "good kid". You know the type that always reads, makes straight A's, never argues, does what they're told, and never speaks. I was only that way because I realized early on that no one cared what I had to say. I saw how I was always doing chores while my sister got to go hang out with her friends or while my brothers did whatever they wanted. If I wasn't doing chores, I was reading. But the most memorable time was when I was 15. I'd gotten an honorable mention for my story "The Lonely Girl and the Stars", and when I tried to express my feelings over it, I was quickly drown out by my family who talked over me and ignored me. I faded into the shadows on the front porch and went to my bedroom. For me that was one of my biggest moments in life. My first real achievement. And my excitement was squashed by a family who couldn't be bothered to listen for two minutes. I did get to celebrate with my parents but not after begging to go to the awards ceremony that they didn't want to go to.

The second most memorable incident was at my graduation party... I had a huge part of my family there and my two best friends at the time. One of my best friends had to leave early for her own graduation (which is fine, that is understandable). The second had some assignments to do (she was a junior). After they left no one else spoke to me the entire time. All those people were supposed to be there to celebrate my graduation and yet couldn't be bothered to acknowledge me.

Both times crushed me, but it taught me that my family doesn't care that much about me, if they can't be bothered to acknowledge my successes. While, I do believe they love me and care about me, I also know I could do everything right and never get a nod of acknowledgement from them unless I point it out. They also taught me, I'd rather be alone and celebrate myself than be surrounded but ignored.

Hello! It has been a while! My name is Victoria. On my previous accounts, I was known as both TeddyBear9979 and VictoriaBowman. However I am in the process of getting rid of that old account. For anyone who doesn't know me, allow me to introduce myself and if you do know me, allow me to re-introduce myself.

I started writing when I was 14-15 years old. It became my main coping mechanism and helped me work through some really bad habits. I mostly write fantasy but I also used to vent as well in my writing. Some of you may have remembered that I introduced another Proser to the site and we happened to have been together at the time, we are no longer together.

Prose was one of the few places I found support and people encouraged me to continue writing. This was where I got the idea to write my book A Collection of Short Stories and my mutuals were very supportive. I've gotten sage advice from older Prosers who've been around the sun more times than I.

Since I fell off, I've dropped out of college and I've met some awesome people and realized that some people just aren't for me. I am now married to an amazing man who wants me to pursue my passions and has even offered to help me with several of them.

Anyway, I am back and look forward to re-kindling the flames of my heart and I hope you will join me in this new chapter.