The thing that has come to me more and more for introspection recently is the idea of a successful marriage. I am not the only one who wonders at the idea that J and I were able to stay together through the tough times, and neither is he. Money, family, illness, drama, all at once! Sheesh! My friends, his friends, our friends, they look at us, usually with a look of incredulity. Granted, you hear those words in your vows—worse, sickness, poorer, but until you are actually in the thick of it…
I can understand why many couples get divorced these days. To cut bait, to say screw it, well, I can’t say that it has never crossed my mind. I am sure it is the same for J. We live in a world where everyone talks in terms of happily ever after, and hardly anyone ever pays attention to what really comes next. The mantra can easily become, “Life isn’t supposed to be this hard.”
The thing that has me shaking my head? No one ever told me that in a successful marriage; you end up falling in love with each other over and over again. Yeah, I saw successful marriages in my life, yeah I studied it and analyzed it my undergrad days. I read that lust turns to passion turns to compassion and discussed it in seminars. That’s the way psychologists speak of it, anyways. This is not what I am talking about, however.
I am talking about the fact that you go through the shit (whether it be financial apocalypse or challenging work/life issues or a sick child or an indiscretion), and you emerge on the other side, and one day you realize that the person you sit next to in the car is not that same person you fell in love with ten years before. They are someone different. You are too. And you grow to like them for who they are now, and you revel in the surprises that getting to know a new person can bring. You find out there were all kinds of thoughts and emotions and actions you were not aware of during the past—both of you were trying too hard to make it through the day to share all of that.
It’s as if you get to start all over again, or like reconnecting on Facebook with that person you had a crush on in high school ten years ago.
Of course, I can only imagine what it would be like if you get to know that person all over again, you find out that it no longer works. I get it, though. I can understand, even if I can’t empathize.
I can tell you that when it does work out well, the feeling is completely unimaginable. Bliss. It is one of my new favorite things.
J has a bad habit of forgetting to take his phone off silent when he’s not at work. I understand why he forgets, and let’s face it-- we all do this at one point or another. It drives me crazy. It reminds me of the days when we didn’t even want to talk to one another. I’ve always been one to shout it out until it’s resolved. J’s always been one to walk away and not speak to someone when he gets angry. We drive each other crazy. There were times where I would call and he would just pick up the phone and hang it back up. Refusing to talk to me—anticipating an argument. This is the biggest button I have, and oh, boy, he was pushing it then.
He was off work yesterday. He forgot to turn his ringer back on. I tried to call him for about 4 hours concerning something that was only semi-important. I was irritated. He finally called me for something else. He could hear it in my voice.
J: Hey, did you try to call me?
Me: Um, yeah. More than once.
J: You can hear him take the phone away from his ear in order to look at the missed calls catalog. From afar you hear him. Oh. OOHHHH!
Me: Yeah.
J: Um, I’m sorry?
Me: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatevs.
It didn’t cause an argument, but he knew that I was irritated. He picked me up from work yesterday, windows down, sun shining in, Ava Adore by Smashing Pumpkins blaring.
Because he knew that Smashing Pumpkins, and driving around with the windows down are two of my favorite things. Because he remembered back to when we were dating, and how we drove the lovely old Camero down Highway 60 one spring evening, FAST, and I told him the only way I could handle going back to Neosho (I was showing him the place I grew up after the whirlwind visit to the St. Louis townships of his youth and the Hill and his parents) is if we listened to that same CD (new at the time) over and over again as I worked up the right mindset. Because to me, the lyrics of “Blank Page” had more in common with that region than its vicinity to a state line.
I looked at him then, new and old mingling. The poor Ford Taurus didn’t even know what had happened to it by the time we picked up Ant.
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