The words engaged and committed have always bothered me. I always felt the restriction in each, an almost tangible pull of a force coming from someplace else. When a person says he or she's engaged, I have this distinct need to ask, In what, exactly? And if someone says, he or she is committed to someone, my mind immediately summons an image of an asylum building -- cold, impersonal, prison-like.

I don't think of myself as engaged or committed. I refuse to. What I am is loved. And because the word I used is as flimsy, as ordinary, as common as, let's say, the word toast, there is always the possibility of ties being broken, one lost then forgotten. But I'd rather have that than feel hedged in. I'd rather feel free with someone than be bound by words that are limiting: a noose around the neck.