FOR BETTER OR WORSE
White picket fence. A husband. A dog. Some kids. And all the Happiness. Growing up, this is mostly what I thought life was in domestic bliss. But it turns out it's not that vanilla. It's more murky. More complicated. More inconvenient. More beautiful. More vibrant. Kinda like a rainbow milkshake mixed with Oreos and cashews. It's nuts. It's also, love.
I was the runaway bride 2 times over. I saw love, felt it, lived it, to the moon and back and then crashed down and burned. It never felt like the real wedding day. In both relationships (and engagements) there was something missing. Both were epic in their own way, filled with light and color that sent me to the (yes, I'll marry you) window, but when it came down to it, I ran. Like fast. The second time I literally ran to the airport, took a plane across the Atlantic, packed up my condo in LA and moved to the Southeast.
Enter, my husband. He was nothing I imagined my husband to be. He was from Georgia, I was from California. He was a songwriter/producer with long hair, had a strong southern accent and a son who was almost 4. I was newly single, wander-lusting, and definitely not looking for love. This was not in the cards. But love was looking for us. And it was strong and fierce and different.
And fall hard we did. And today, after 9 years of marriage, I'm stunned at time. And I'm incredibly proud of who we are. Not because we're awesome marrieds, but because we love, and we care, and we don't strive for awesome. We revel in the chaos that is life with four kids, including twins under two. We laugh at the ridiculousness of the chaos at times and we hold on extremely tight when we get the chance to stand outside the chaos. We make lots of mistakes and we stand short in the heaviness of forgiveness. But we do forgive. We hold each other in times of sadness, and drop tears of joy in times of successes. And by successes, I mean, this. A long intimate kiss on our wedding day, a number 1 song, a "Da-da" from the lips of a baby girl, a sonogram of twin baby boys with healthy heartbeats, a daughter's first school play, a son's graduation with honors from 8th grade, a negative result from a Doctor's test. It's soaking up the good with the bad, the richer days and the poorer days, the sickness and the health, the "I'm sorry's" and the "we did its." Marriage doesn't come with a manual and although adult-ing is part of the plan and part of the plan is learning that marriage isn't always easy like in the fairytales, the conundrum is, the fairytales are never easy till the last 4 minutes of the film. And perhaps that's how marriage is meant to be. A journey of inexplicable wonder of trial and error, ups and downs and so much palpable love and color that when you finally get to the end of the journey, it's magical and perfect and you just wish you had more time with the love of your life.
Perhaps this is why God made marriage. To show us that we are strong and willing and capable of love. And worthy of it. And to teach us the virtue of forgiveness. And that being there for somebody for life is a gift. One worth fighting for. In this crazy life where the world doesn't give us any solid answers, I know that love, in all it's murky color, for better or worse, is an answered prayer, and marriage to my guy, in all it's imperfection and all of it's glorious beauty, is everything I ever wanted out of love. Happy 9 my love, here's to us.
