Marriage Advice

Sometimes you just have a good day.  It doesn't happen that often, but when it does, you just need to sit back and relish it.  That's what I'm doing right now.

The sun is pouring in through the wall of windows in my room warming me all the way through.  Piper and Finn are happily playing downstairs with their cousins, their laughter and chatter floating up the stairs making me smile.  Celia has spent the day at home (her free day) making cake, reading, and actually helping me.  Phoebe is off with laughing friends--I won't see her again today I'm sure.  And John is off picking up pizza so no dinner making for me (joy joy joy)

After a beautiful session of flowing yoga and a killer 10 minute ab workout with my choga girls, I walked three miles with Emily in the wind and the sunshine and felt cold and alive.  Then I curled up on the couch with the final book in the Red Rising series (honestly, best. books. ever!) and finally got to read.  I ignored my phone.  I ignored emails and social media.  I just sat in the sun and read (and maybe dozed for a minute or two).

I raced off to a meeting with more people I adore and felt inspired by their love of our elementary school and their willingness to make things better for our children.

I came back and got to finish the last pages of the book (did NOT disappoint), then off with Pip and Finn to meet up with the cousins at the Children's Museum--they ran around playing tag as I finally read emails.  Then John showed up to surprise us and got to sit in the psychedelic flower center room and talk while the kids race by one after the other.

And now I'm home.  Sitting in the warm sun, listening to the cold wind outside, thinking that for the first time in months, I feel still inside and at peace.

It is a WONDERFUL feeling.

As I was driving back here, the children laughing and yelling in the car, I though for a moment about epiphanies--those moments where your life is pretty much changed forever.  I think I had my first one when I was sixteen, horribly sick and sad and I realized that life wasn't about living small, but living big with your whole heart--whatever comes.

I was talking to my niece who is in love and scared.  How do you commit you life to someone?  Life is long, there are twists, you change, they change, what if you meet someone you like more, how do you bet on one person?

It's funny she should ask this because I've been thinking a lot about it.  We all know someone(s) who took that risk and through no fault of their own, it just didn't work out and they're sort of left crushed.  And a lone.  And poor.  And confused.  And they have trust issues that go on for YEARS.  And sometimes they never find anyone else.  They raise children alone.

So what should I tell her?

The truth.

Crap happens.

There's just no way around it.  There are no guarantees.  But I'd rather live big and with my whole heart than afraid in a shell.  I knew when I got married that it might not work.  I knew I could be left for a thousand and one reasons desolate and alone.  I knew I was placing my fragile heart into someone elses and they could crush it.

I knew all this.

And I still did it.

I still do it.

Every day.

And it's scary.  Sometimes, when things aren't that great or he does something that might kill him, it's frankly horrifying.

But I still do it.

Because I'd so much rather do that than live safe and alone.

I was talking to my friends at lunch yesterday and they were talking about divorce--one was divorced and remarried and the others' parents had divorced when she was young.  They talked about how their daughters were afraid of marriage and commitment and how they could be hurt.  With good reason.  They'd seen it in their own lives or in their parents.  What could they tell them?

I listened to them talk and talk about all the different advice they could give them and ways they could tell if the relationship was strong or not or if the marriage would work.  All of it good and wise and smart.  But when they turned to me, I had to say what I think:  I think it's a crap shoot.  I do.

I wish there was a theorem or a test or a way to measure the guaranteed success of anything, but I don't think there is.  John and I couldn't have more going for us in every conceivable way--we knew each other forever, we dated forever, our families were alike, our families were wonderful and supportive, we had enough money, we were both smart, we were both devoted, we were both good people and even us, we've almost broken on more than one occasion.  It's a totally humbling thing.

So what do I tell my niece?  My friends?  Anyone?

This is what I tell them (and you):  Don't get married until you feel like the world wouldn't be complete without that person walking with you hand and hand. 

Don't worry if your world isn't filled with mad passion.  That burns out, it's the simple kindness that simmers and creates richness that lasts forever.  However, you should like how it feels when they are close to you.  That's a must.

Marry someone who is fundamentally kind.  Who holds doors open to people, who takes time to listen to someone less than them and who treats everyone as if they are important. 

Marry someone who makes you laugh. 

Marry someone who looks around and notices what's going on around them. 

And most of all, marry someone who is unafraid of hard work.

Because I'm telling you right now, after almost 21 years, marriage is not for wimps.  Not even a little bit.  It's hard, it's gritty, and sometimes it's pure pain.

And it's also pretty much the most wonderful thing to ever happen to you.

I'm twenty-one years in and I'm telling you, John still makes me INSANE.  Honestly, you'd think I'd get used to his idiosyncrasies,  and I have, but they make me CRAZY.  And I know for a fact (just on Sunday in fact), I honestly make him see red.  He told me, It's been like a million years that we've been together, you think you'd learn that I hate . . ..  But we don't always learn.  We're slow learners and also, sometimes, it's just us.  It's the package deal. 

Last night I was cold, freezing and I couldn't get warm.  Then John climbed into bed and I said, I'm freezing and even though he cannot go to sleep touching anything at all, he scooted over wrapped his arms around me and I was finally warm and I fell right asleep.

That sounds small right, but to me, it's huge.  Because he's still putting me and my cold feet ahead of his poor tired self.

That, my friends, is love.

Remember that.

Which leads me to another epiphany I had during a rather dark time in our years together.  I was laying on a trampoline with a million stars twinkling over head in the middle of no where on a summer night.  I was talking to my sister.  I don't even remember what we were talking about but I realized that all the hard stuff John and I were puzzling through, mostly had to do with forgetting what we loved about each other.  We were getting all tangled up in the other stuff.

In that moment, I felt a love for John that I never had.  I saw him, not the person I wanted him to be, but him with all his crazy madness-es and things that both hurt and enraged me, and thought, He's my package deal.

This is what I get.

I don't get to choose only the nice parts.  Nope.  No siree.  I get the package deal.  That's how he comes.

And that night, even though he was hundred of miles away and we were months away from figuring things out, I began change.

Me.

I'd been living closed again, scared and alone.  Still sixteen inside, I guess.  I had pulled into my shell against the hurt or the potential of hurt and become a bit selfish with my love and my approval.

It didn't matter what he'd done.  It mattered what I was doing.

Stingy stingy me.

And it turns out, we like being loved as the package deal.  The more John began to realized I was ok with ALL of him, not just parts, the man pretty much bloomed (and I must say, it took a minute or two or five thousand for him to believe me)--as do we all when we are loved just as we are.

So that's my last bit of advice:  Learn to love the package deal. It's not all pretty, it's raw and ugly a bit, but it's what will give you the best chance for surviving life's insane twists and turns and pressures (don't even get me started on how children alter this paradigm).

And if it all just fails?

Well, you tried.

You didn't hide in a corner and protect your soft heart.  You put it out there and you were brave and honest and you did your part.

And I'm pretty darn convinced, once you heal, you'll be glad you did.  Or if not glad you loved that person, at least be proud that you took the risk, you braved the storm and you made the attempt.  There is great honor in that.


So my friends, there are no guarantee, but there are bits of advice that may help you along the journey.

Good luck.

Live wise, love with everything.



ps: re-late.  I am officially incapable of being on-time.  It's a fact.  I guess it's my package deal.  sorry john!