The Steady

Who doesn't love a good romance movie or book? Intrigue, tension, resolution and then there's the happily-ever-after. 

I am a voracious reader. I like to have 4-5 books going at the same time. Usually they're at my "stations," right by my various sets of reading glasses. Stations include: the recliner where I sit next to Ken, the big double-chair where I read my Bible in the morning, a spot beside my bed, a big armchair in our bedroom, and then, of course, the bathroom (that quiet cave that all Mamas learn early to appreciate). When they invented the Kindle apparatus, however, it changed the world forever. I can have hundreds of books all in one place at my fingertips. Why is it that "they" always seem to find ways to tell us that something, especially if it's newfangled, is bad for us? I saw a study recently that found that Kindles and phones and tablets actually inhibit learning -- that we absorb the information way better if we put our hands on the pages, and that it is better for our brains. I need all the help I can get in that department. That doesn't mean I'm giving up my Kindle, even if I might try harder to aim for physical books. What a treat it is to furtively read by the soft glow of a device while my husband is snoring right next to me. There's definitely something delightful about a good beach read, where the pages get rumply and sand finds its way into the spine. I think of many summers where I have lolled about with a good book on a blanket and gotten a tan while also being transported to far-flung places and adventures. Once our children were old enough to fend for themselves, the reading quadrupled. I hope they forgive me. 

Back to the romance category. Even though many people love them, I lean away. I've got more than I can handle at the house, and I don't need some fairy tale notion of love that has little to do with the sinner I live with (and the debauched one he lives with) -- but to each his own. The idea of romantic love is heady at times, like a roller coaster often, but the test of real love includes the steady, faithful walking over time. Through fire, water, trials, euphoria, delight and even boredom. I've been around the sun enough times to know that if you hang in there, you will get the experience of many different parts of your spouse and yourself, over the span of years and decades. Usually one of you is the nerd and one is the free spirit, but not always. The sandpaper of each others' personalities and foibles are the things that can make your teeth grind and the application of patience seem impossible. 

In these days, buzz words are everywhere: toxic, boundaries, narcissism, "my truth," and "I am enough." We're imperfect, struggling people, at least on the planet I'm living on. We need each other and have been helped all of our lives in myriad ways, even if we've existed in very difficult circumstances. What is romantic is when we find a way to love and forgive each other in the middle of being a mess, which we all actually are (if you could see inside our complicated, irregular selves).

I know only one way to do that, and I am the receiver of so much grace. There is a Fountain...   

Nitpickin' Our Way Through

There are things that we wrestle with in marriage, even 44 years later. The handsome stud muffin I married plagued with OCD qualities, and I with my ADD tendencies are still those same people, though we've changed and changed some more. They say that women marry a man, expecting him to change, and he never does. And men marry a woman, expecting her to stay the same, and she never does. I think this is somewhat true, though I've seen Ken change for the better and I've probably changed for the worse. People don't usually know each other well, when they first marry. We think we do. My young self would have told you that we were very similar in personality. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we took those personality tests some years later, our scores were as opposite as humanly possible. So how does that work out, over the sea changes that happen in a normal lifetime? And how do you not kill each other, when you are so different? Ask me later. Maybe I'll figure it out. That's the problem with these conundrums. Years ago, someone challenged me to write a book about how wives deal with husbands who have lost their jobs. Sounded good. We'd been through the lion's share of unemployment. I began interviewing women who had also been through it. Got lots of testimonials. Had lots of opinions about it. At the end of things, I was schlumped over my computer and stuck, because I had no real clues as to how to deal with such deep and terrible problems. I knew how I was "supposed" to behave, but there were no pat answers, no list of steps to survive in your marriage when things got bad. We managed to make it through it, but not because we had the magic formula (except, well, God, that....) And maybe things in life are not meant to have some mysterious algorithm when it comes to success.  It might be human nature to go looking for things that really aren't there at all. Case in point: there's scripture that says that men are supposed to love their wives. Like, the obvious point of loving their wives. That seems too simple, too common to be the answer to anything. Then there's the admonition to the wife to see to it that she respects her husband. Well, what if he doesn't deserve respect? Or, you don't know my particular husband. God didn't know about him and He obviously didn't know about her. Love. Respect. He didn't say much (or really anything) about the wife seeing to it that she love her husband. Isn't that weird? But I think, in general, loving our husbands isn't the hard part to us women. Respect, however, might be trickier. We see "the way." If he isn't headed there, well, I might have something to say about that. Because us women have a whole lot going on in our finicky brains and we don't naturally agree with how he's leading. If he is. And if he isn't, we demand to know why not. We're complicated. It says to see to it that I respect him, period. I'm not talking about you or your relationship to your husband. I'm not in your family. I'm speaking from these eyes over here on Magnolia Street. And after 44 years, I know that if I find a way to honor and respect that man, his back straightens, his work is better, his eyes get clearer, he often finds the he-man inside him that is stronger, more capable, with more vision. When I pick him to death with my agenda or what he doesn't do or doesn't do well, I find it tears my house down, one puny brick at a time.  I saw this with our sons as well. When the right women came along, the nobler parts of them grew and wanted to do better, to be better. Our son-in-law said he felt the same way when our daughter entered his life.  

On the flip side, when a woman truly feels loved, seen, cherished, that changes everything too. Some get that from their Daddys and husbands. Some don't. I wish I could fix it all, but I can't.

The world can be a complicated place, but what I do know is: these are ancient truths, mysterious yet straightforward. When you examine them closely, they make so much sense. Who needs the psychiatrist? Just kidding, I'm not going there...