Married, and things...

There’s a photo of my husband and me hanging on the wall of our living room.  It’s a great black and white shot, taken on our wedding day.  His face is in the foreground, blurry, and mine is in the back and sharply focused.  I look serious, something I rarely am and don’t remember being that day. I thought it was odd at first.  The more time that goes by, though, the more I like the picture and what it symbolizes- how thoughtful one really has to be to be married, and how much you don’t expect that.

Anne Lamott once said upon attending a friend’s marriage how touching the whole thing is.   “Two people fall in love, and decide to see if that love might hold up over time, if there might be enough grace and forgiveness and memory lapses to hold the whole shebang together.”  I think you can boil down all the vows you make during your wedding and distill them into those three things. Grace, forgiveness, and memory lapses. And of course, the binding aspect of it all. You are legally bound to be in each other’s corners.  Which is good, considering how different marriage is from what you expect.

When you’re dating, and things are rosy and perfect, you’re sure it will be fabulous, because of course no one in the world has ever been as in love as the two of you are.  You can’t imagine that in a few years you’ll find yourself saying things like “What’s the matter with you?”  Your spouse replies, “I’m just lying here,” and your response to this is “yeah, well, you’re lying there with a tone.”  Only in a marriage is this sort of thing said.

 People who are not married (or in long term partnerships, no bias here) don't really understand it, probably.  Or maybe they do and have decided it's not for them.  After all, there's something to be said for the sort of longing you have in the beginning, for the mere mention of the object of your affection making your hands shake.  It's gorgeous and exciting, really, to be so interested in a new person.  But there's also something to be said for having someone in your life who's seen the very worst of you and decides to hang around anyway, as cliche a sentiment as that is.  There’s something extraordinarily ordinary about it all. You pictured it being smooth, painless, a sort of waltz that you would just automatically know the steps to.  Or a great love song at the very least.  It turns out it’s static.

"Did you give him his amoxicillin?  Will you let the dog out?  There’s something funky in the fridge.  I don’t know where your socks are! No, I did it last time.  We have to be at Parent’s Night in less than three minutes!  Can you turn the dryer on? Should we just get takeout? He’s got a fever-maybe his ears?  The electric bill is high this month."

But honestly, it doesn't feel ordinary anymore.  It doesn't feel like a cliche.  It feels like a truth as clear and deep as the cold lakes I grew up swimming in, and just as beloved.  When you decide to love someone instead of just feeling it, it becomes a fact of your life, at least it has in mine.  There is gravity and the weight of water and Meg loves Andy, world without end.

 As it turns out, there are lyrics to the static.  If you listen closely, under all that, there’s something else being said.  If you listen closely, you’ll hear, “I don’t want any life but this one.”  You’ll hear, “I’ll stand by you as long as I breathe.”  And of course you’ll hear, quite loudly and with every heartbeat, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”