It was late- 2 am, to be exact- and I was so tired that eyes felt grainy. As usual, I was too stupid to just give in to the tired and close my eyes. So there I sat, playing a computer game on the bed and watching my husband sleep.

He sleeps like he lives- blissful, intense, peaceful. I picked up my journal and began writing letters to my kids, but my eyes drifted again and again to the slender man beside me. I leaned against him and wrote on his arm a line from Song of Songs,

"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth..."

He gurgled in his sleep and his arm twitched under the felt tip of the pen. I finished my letters to my kids, and turned back to his skin as canvas. Another line from the Song of Songs, a smiley face here, a heart there, and a little "I love you" on his forearm, and he squirmed more. Afraid of waking him, I switched off the light, put my pen away, and let myself sleep, one arm flung around his shoulders.


The next morning, cursing the scant amount of sleep I allowed myself, I groggily dragged myself out of bed and thrust my gritty eyes under the shower head. Michael had discovered his poetry and was grinning at the mirror, twisting his body in search of more. I raised my arm to adjust the water flow and spotted a familiar bit of art. The little ink heart from his arm had bled onto my own skin, forming a perfect mirror image.

I couldn't help but laugh, you see, for this is the perfect reflection of our lives together: our love rubs off on each other. He has taught me patience and forgiveness, I have helped curb his aggressive fighting instincts.

I think this is what we were wanting when we set off on this together, eleven years ago. I think this is what every couple should have a bit of...

Love, mirrored in each other, with plenty to copy.

Labels: couples, love, marriage, relationships, Song of Songs

So many untruths abound about this institution of marriage. I know that I, as one lone voice in the wilderness, am powerless to dispel anything, but I can try. Once again, this is a segmented series I am writing about marriage (and relationships in general, but mostly marriage). I offer no concrete answers, just postulations and thoughts, questions and theories. Please do not take anything offensively about your own situation, just listen and chime in as you'd like.

Part I of this discussion is here.

• Myth #1:

"Marriage will settle him/her down, make a better person of them. I have the power to change this person."

I would hope, honestly, that no one would be gullible enough to believe this anymore. Alas, this is not so. I do think that less people buy into this as time goes on, but I still hear people (especially women, unfortunately) phrase this in some way or other. Two issues immediately arise about this statement:

1. If they are not good enough for you now, what guarantee do you have that they ever will be?
2. Sure, marriage changes people. What if you don't like the change?

I changed when I got married, and I continue to change. My basic personality has not changed, however. My husband changed, but not his internal character. He gave up the skateboard tricks as his body became less agile, but he still loves punk and freewalking and other alternative sports. I spend more time in the kitchen and the laundry room than I ever planned on, but it's a result of having children and a desire to feed my family things that are healthy and make sure they wear clean clothes. Mike and I have to learn to argue less, as oldest children we are both leaders and can clash easily. We've had to stash parts of our natural personality in order to keep peace in the house. We do this voluntarily, neither of us forcing the other's hand, as that is action not taken in love.

When I married Michael, he was a jobless, car-less kid with a head full of dreams. But I knew that he was a hard worker, and that he'd find another job (which he did, several times since!), and that he would always take care of me.

I was an emotional basketcase, resentful of men in general but determined to love him. I was abused but rather spoiled, prone to fits of depression and mania, and extremely difficult to please. But Michael knew under all of that, there was a heart that was true and loving, and that I would always be there for him.

If I would have entered marriage with the goal of 'straightening him out', if he would have gone into this hoping my hissy fits and demanding personality would go away, well... we'd both be unhappy people right now! Instead we stood and committed ourselves, in front of 120 of our friends and family, to take each other the way we were and make it work.

And if you intend to 'change' your future spouse- how can you even be sure you will like the changes? One thing Michael does as a result of marriage is the 'Yes, dear...' when he is distracted/irritated. I hate this, as it makes him sound emasculated, which he is certainly not. But he does it because it's an automatic 'shut Sarah up' mode that he has learned. One thing I do that Michael hates is worry- about every bleeding thing! But I've learned to worry about tiny things because he forgets small details that make our life better- like remembering to pay the electric bill. So I fret, first thing when I wake up- 'Did you pay the electric bill? Do we have enough money for gas? Groceries? Did we get the lawn mowed this week?' Mike hates it, but it's my defense against things going awry. These habits of ours have both been learned through our relationship, and they are ones we are working (kind of) at eradicating.

Be sure that the one you choose to marry has a good character as their central core- if they are a liar, a cheater, an abuser- run. But if they have a decent moral build to begin with, then any small things (forgetting to put the toilet seat down will not cause your family financial problems or give you an STD) can be put up with. Just don't enter a covenant of marriage with the intention of fixing that person.

______


This leads me, by the way, to an addendum to this 'fix them' idea:

Emotional blackmail is never a basis for love, marriage, sex, or anything of the sort. If your spouse (or anyone in your family/friend circle) is not up to your standards, then crying, berating, belittling, or yelling is not going to change them for the better- it is going to slowly poison the relationship until both of you slowly lose your identity. Don't do it. Trust me on this, I watched it growing up, not only in my household but those of a couple of family members, and none of these people are ok now- not the victim or the abuser. That's right- if you use emotional blackmail you are an abuser. Stop.

Labels: change, husband, love, marriage, relationships, spouse, wife

I've read statistics of marriage, singleness, divorce, infidelity, and marital happiness. Advice columnists warn young infatuated people to not marry young, movies inform us that there is 'that one' somewhere out there, and that special music will play when we meet them, and our embittered single friends proclaim that all relationships are doomed and it's all a game.

What of this is true?

What of this is relative?

How many young people out there are passing on happy marriages because they listen to others, how many married people are cheating because they feel more alive, how many single people are gaming the game because they refuse to be taken by the game? And how many people are still passing up happiness because they are waiting for that fairytale experience?


How many more people dive into the wrong marriage because they want that fairytale experience at any expense?

I would like to address these questions, and more, in a segmented series on this blog. I don't have much research or knowledge, but I have personal experience, and I see and hear a lot of stigma associated with different aspects of marriage that I just feel like commenting on.

Today's marriage topic: Age. How young, exactly, is too young? When Michael and I got engaged, at the tender and foolish age of nineteen, we were warned by a few that we were far too young to know what love was, and that maybe we should just stay engaged for a few years, mature a little, and have a wedding when we were well established in our jobs and personalities. We smiled, nodded, thanked them, and then did exactly as we pleased. We may have been young, but we were older than our age, both of us having been on our own a bit earlier than most of our peers. We knew that we loved each other intensely, knew that we fit each others' jagged edges like two halves of a broken plate, and we knew that we could make it work.

And we have... for nearly eleven years now, we have braved the waves of life side by side. Oh sure, I could blither on about how it 'hasn't been easy' and 'marriage takes hard work', but I might nauseate myself. Nothing in life is easy, but sharing a bed and a home with my best friend has been one of the finer points in my life! Sure, we fight sometimes. When you rub elbows with one person for hours on end you're bound to fight, especially if that person has to share responsibilities and bills and whining children and dirty dishes and ingrown toenails... all in all, however, it's been good, and I have every intention of having it remain good for another eleven years, and then thirty or so after that.

So how have we trumped the statistic of young marrieds? Sheer force of will? Dumb luck? Are we some of those very few that have their destinies written in the stars and actually found it? A combination of all three?

Well, let me state here that I do not believe there is only one person for every other person. That would be like the baggage claim from hell: you pick up the green suitcase and carry it away, sure your name is emblazoned on the tag. You carry it home and unpack it, only to find mismatched socks, underwear with skid marks, and a half-eaten sandwich instead of your own pressed and folded shirts. What you don't know (yet) is that the next person in line picked up the black suitcase that should have gone to you, which means that the person after them may or may not get their suitcase, and it's all gong to be one disaster.

While Michael is 'the one' for me, it is because I took a vow to keep it that way, not because stars fell over our heads on our first date (actually, salt did, but that's another story). No violin concerto played, the only music I heard was his fumbling lute picking beside me in the golden Ohio afternoon. While he was immediately convinced that he would spend the rest of his life with me, I was still flitting around the Renaissance flirting with other guys, it took me a whole month longer to figure it out!

On the matter of a couple being too young to have solid identities, I ask why one has to have a solid, single identity? I thrill in the fact that we as a couple have discovered our favorite movies together, yet still have completely different tastes in music. I adore that we entered this union as immature, starstruck people in love, and we're going to go out of this world only slightly more mature, but still happy and in love. Rather than being concretely established in a career, I am proud to have learned and grown in my career while Mike has done the same in his own field, and I am excited when our careers merge! We are two people who have become so enmeshed in each other and each others' lives that we are one flesh, one mind, one heart. Yet somehow we are individuals.

Age has very little to do with it. I've seen people marry young and divorce months later, I have customers who married at 16 and are still in love at 75. I've seen mature, confident, established people marry at 28 and fall out of love a year later because they just couldn't mesh their lives, and I've seen people change everything about themselves in order to woo a person who really makes them miserable in the long run.

Age has so little to do with it, taking into consideration the person was an adult in the first place.

I think some of the factors necessary for a marriage, at any age, to work are:

• Maturity
• Selflessness
• Determination
• Humility
• Sensuality + Commitment (these must go hand in hand)
  
• Humor

But guess what? I didn't have most of those qualities when I married, and I am not much closer to them a decade later. The cool thing about love, to wrap all that up, is that it can be so forgiving. However, if a person is missing all of these qualities, there is a high chance they will never be happy at all, let alone within a relationship.

I didn't start this post to lay out answers for you, only questions. If you are a young person considering marriage, I have a question for you: will you still love this person when they embarass you at parties, vote differently than you, and refuse to take out the garbage?

If you are a married person considering divorce or a fling, I have one question for you: will this fix what is lacking inside of you?

Part II of this series is here.

Labels: age, commitment, divorce, first love, love, marriage

"Waiting for marriage!" People snort derisively, "Wouldn't buy a car without test driving it first, would ya?!?"

I have heard this often over the years, and never really had an answer ready. I would merely shrug, happy in my own choices and standards.

I waited until marriage, and so did my husband, Michael. We are the blessed in the fact that we have a wonderful marriage, love life, and ongoing relationship. We didn't have a 'test drive' first in the sense of sleeping together- a few kisses were enough to let us know that we were passionately compatible!

And this morning, after ten and one half glorious years of marriage, the answer came to me in the shadows of pre-dawn- we didn't even need a test drive.

Sure, if you're going to the car lot to buy a used Saturn station wagon you may want to find out what you are getting. But if you have a Father, a really cool dad for whom money is not an object, you may have a different situation.

Imagine waking up one morning and looking out your bedroom window. Sitting in the driveway is a neon blue Ferrari Tessarosa. With your name on it. All yours, free and clear.

Are you going to whine about a test drive?? No! You're going to run out the door, barely remembering to thank your Dad, grab the keys, and start that baby up! It's been lovingly custom made, months of work and engineering and painting and tiny details, all for you. It's been handpicked by Someone who knows you the best, and although it will require maintenance, it is free. And yours. Forever.

When I bought my first car, I saved and worked and saved and worked. I walked into Weidner Motors one cloudy afternoon and plunked down $3,500 of my own sweat-stained money for a Ford Taurus station wagon. It was a great car, but within a few years I had outgrown my need for it. I sold it to a lovely Mexican lady in Tucson, and moments later had to chase her through the mall parking lot when I remembered my U2 tape was still in the deck! I have a few photos of that car, and some fond memories, but it was just a phase in my life.

When Michael entered my life, it was like finding that perfect match. His ragged edges fit my ragged edges and we completed each other. We didn't need to experiment to know that we were right for each other- we knew that we had been hand-picked by Someone who loved and knew us more than we ourselves knew us!

Our marriage has required maintenance- regular fill-ups of encouragement, costly date nights, inexpensive date nights, teary 'discussions' about everything from finances to why he can't seem to remember that I hate yellow roses, and the occasional spontaneous burst of love in a letter or song.

Unlike that Taurus wagon, I haven't outgrown my need for Michael. I still curl to his back at night, until my body heat spikes and the comforter becomes a raging inferno (anybody else have this problem? I need an ice-pack nightgown). Somehow, in the early morning gloaming, when the house is cooler and the blankets have made their way almost to the bathroom, our hands find each others and, mid-sleep, we once again snuggle together as tightly as we can fit. I have my heavenly Father to thank for the perfect match, the ultimate, custom-made mate that I will never need to upgrade or replace.

And I don't think he'll depreciate, either.

Labels: career, celibacy, experiment, love, marriage, sex, test-drive, virginity, waiting

The dress I married in rests in a cedar chest at the foot of our bed. It is there as a reminder of our beginnings, but we seldom think about it as go about our daily lives.

Ten years ago. Well, ten years and a few months now, as I meant to do this post sooner.

We were young, so very young. People told us we had no idea what we were getting into- and really, we didn't. But we knew that we loved each other, and we knew that we could make it work.

And we always have.

Of course there have been bumps in the road- I would be dishonest to say it's all been delightful! But constant smooth sailing would be boring now, wouldn't it?

Three children, a dozen moves, and a mountain of debt later and here we are, still in love, and still fairly young! By the time we are 40, we will have 20 years of marriage under our belts and our kids will be able to fend for themselves. We can take that trip to Scotland that we always dreamed of, travel and explore and have some more adventures.

I don't know when we'll ever get to build our dream house together, the off-the-grid straw bale house with gardens on the roof that we've dreamed of for years. But somehow I feel that because we both hold the dream so dear that it will happen- even if its not until we're older. And then we'll have the garden and the observatory and the pair of mastiffs to walk with and the cat curled up in the window seat and an endless supply of tea and beer.

But until then we have daily adventures. I cook and he puts the leftovers away. I do laundry and he takes out the trash. I do all the grocery shopping and he deals with anything stinky or eight-legged. I pay bills and he structures a budget. I fall asleep early from sheer exhaustion and he tucks the children in and reads another chapter of Narnia to them.

We have a working relationship, we have a loving relationship, and we have a passionate relationship. He is the first one that I turn to in any trial or triumph. He is my rock, my stabilizer, my inspiration. He protects me from myself and the world, and I defend him to the death.

In our children I see us, mirrored yet made more perfect- my eyes, his eyelashes. My sharp cheekbones, his full lips. My funky feet, his unruly hair. They are so beautiful, a blend of all of our good features and none of the bad. Would to God that their personalities will follow suit.

He sleeps beside me now as I write this, peaceful as long as he is in contact with me. If I get up, moving away from him, and sit in my green chair by the window, he becomes restless and whimpers in his sleep. It is a vulnerable side of him that people do not often see.
He needs me.
I need him.
He has me.
I have him.
For another decade, for a lifetime.

Thanks for one great decade, Michael, and here's to another five.
I love you.

Labels: anniversary, decade, love, marriage, ten years

I've heard some obnoxious radio ad for a book or program or something called "Your best Life NOW!"
I've never kept the radio on long enough to know what this travesty really is, because the person speaking sounds like a mental case. It's possible they took the gig just to make enough cash to get their next fix.

I don't need someone telling me how to have my best life now.

Sitting in my just-right-for-a-short-person chair, which also happens to be my favorite color, I can hear Michael's voice from the next room as he reads The Chronicles of Narnia to the kids for bedtime. His voice is reassuring, gentle, pleasant. I always wanted to marry a man with a pleasant voice, it was on my 'list'. His is the voice of one who will always be there for me.

In my stomach is an excellent meal, in my lap sits a finely-tuned piece of equipment on which to type drivel, and by my side is a candle flickering softly. Kids come to exchange goodnight kisses, giggles are shared beneath mismatched sheets and blankets. The furnace kicks on, warming us against the lingering Michigan winter. When the house is asleep, I'll wander downstairs and nibble on my kids' Easter bunnies.

Life is good.

Not perfect, but very, very good. Sure, my house is a mess and I'm late on my car payment and I could stand to lose some weight and I struggle with acne at the ridiculous age of thirty, but those all pale in comparison to the facts: I have a good life.
I am safe, for now.
I am provided for.
I have a good job and a pleasant work environment.
I have a car- missing a side mirror and a bit too small for my family of five- but it runs consistently and has AC and a radio. And a sunroof.
I have a home. The rent is a bit high, the toilet still doesn't want to flush, I have to endure a ceiling fan in the kitchen if I want light, and its a long haul to the backyard during barbeque season, but there's a roof over my head. With a skylight!
I live in a country that may have its issues, but allows me to freely worship where and when I please, go into business for myself, and cross state lines and buy oranges whenever I want and even read whatever book I choose. For now.
I have a family that tolerates my mistakes and weaknesses, loves me despite them all, and encourages me always to be a better person.
I have a mother-in-law that is just as close as another sister. And she hems my pants.
I have an Italian immigrant grandmother (nonna) with stories of the war and clear plastic on her couch and garlic in her fridge. She is failing rapidly, but still made sure I got a flower for Easter this year. When I look in the mirror I see her face and sturdy frame and I am not sure if I am honored or terrified to be so much like her.
I have three (count 'em, three!) daughters who love to be princesses just as much as they love to be Obi-Wan Kenobe. They are intelligent and articulate and beautiful, and even if they weren't I would love them with all of my heart.
I have a spouse, a partner, a lover in my husband of ten years. He spars with me, for which I respect him, and he protects me, for which I revere him. He never lets me accept second best from myself, and he takes the trash out faithfully. Sometimes... on a full moon, he even washes the dishes. I'm not sharing him, get your own.

So for all of the self-fulfillment books and tapes and pills and herbal concoctions out there: stop trying to sell me blather that I don't need!
And for all of you grasping for happiness- through money, love, or power- you won't find it if you don't have it! Take an evening to look around you, drink in the wonderful things you have been surrounded with, and learn to be fulfilled with your life. Build a piece of your own contentment. Be brave enough to experience and even drown in love. Eat a good steak. Read a good book (ahem, I can recommend one, if you need).

This is the best life you could have, today. Let tomorrow worry about itself. Let yesterday be yesterday.

Labels: best, book, career, chair, content, fulfilled, fulfillment, happiness, happy, kids, life, marriage, read, self-help, steak, writing

Mike and I celebrated our tenth anniversary this past week. I was thinking back on all of the attributes that attracted us to each other, and how some of this personality traits now tend to be ever so grating.

For those of you who are in the process of falling in love, or may someday be, here's a handy conversion chart:
[remember, its tongue-in-cheek, a good relationship only gets better with age :)]

Guess I might have been called honest and sincere and one point...

Labels: cynical, dating, love, marriage, romance, translation