marriage

I actually took a class called Marriage 101 at MSU. I don't remember what I learned. My cousin’s now ex-husband was in the class and we would go to Baskin's and Robbins’ after class. I always had a single scoop German chocolate cake ice cream cone. It was delicious, especially the bits of pecan and coconut. I married before my final paper was due. I think my grade was a B+.

It has been thirty-five years since that class since we promised our church, our state and each other to honor and respect as long as we both may love. I must have attained some degree of matrimonial skills.

Romantically envisioning a heart beating as one is obliterated as I sit alone in the waiting room of a jail, clutching my child’s antidepressants in a haze of blame-filled tears. In an emergency room begging my sister not to call, not ready to hear the frustrated voice calculating the expense of more normal tests. It is learning a spouse is not everything. We may share, children, possessions, interests, but when I miss my mom I call my sister, when I am depressed I wrap myself around my big dogs, when I am sick I call the doctor and hope it passes quickly. It does not diminish the significance of our union, but grants freedom. Freedom, from the impossibility of being everything to each other and the failure that follows.

Marriage is listening to the same story a hundred times and listening to it again. It's screaming and being screamed at, lost remotes, forgotten bills, barking dogs, dirty dishes, on and on and on through a mundane mountain. The ordinary is comforting.
It is the unexpected, where there is no internal GPS, that is when the illusions of partner collide with reality. Together through the dark rides, a team of two, pushing through, holding the flashlight, keeping guard while one sleeps. Celebrating triumphant, third grade basketball, jobs not lost, the sun shining.

Life is messy,loud, and complicated. To share this adventure of the unknown with someone a precious gift.