They had been engaged properly with a lovely wedding planned. Their wedding was beautiful and warm. Big family affair on both sides. The bride in white was pale pink, while I was green; not with jealously, but morning sickness.
About five years before, I had chosen an abortion to end an unplanned pregnancy. This time around, I really loved and cared for the father and knew he would take good care of us. The first time I didn't have a conscience or a constitution. This time, I would not have considered it, although telling our parents and friends was hard. I never wanted Craig to feel trapped or manipulated, didn't want to lose my best friend.
A marriage has stages. The first years were hard. We had one set back after another for years and years. I don't really know how he had the fortitude and wherewithal to keep loving me. High maintenance is putting it mild. If you ask him, he just says, "I decided to, that's all". He has always told the girls and me that we are his dreams come true. He is so convincing, we believe him.
As our anniversary comes around, I looked back through this last year of blogging. He is high on the list of things I write about. I describe him, give him tribute, explain, laugh, ruminate, ponder and share him with words.
He hasn't always been top on my list. One of my worst fears is that I would be unfaithful to him - I can be fickle when I'm not being bipolar. I have admired other men more than him more than once. I have found other things more important and more interesting by default once in a while.
Honesty has kept the intimacy of our deep friendship. He has never been offended when I've come to him with my fears, shame, troubles or secrets. We have never had secrets from each other. Ever. He is safe for me to be real, so I never have to be anything else. That's a comfort. Trust keeps growing as respect gets heaped on the pile of love.
Yesterday, Hugh Mcleod tweeted "The Dot and the Line" a romance about lower mathematics.
If you clicked the link, you heard our life story better than I could tell it. I consider myself a fortunate woman. Twenty one years fortunate. Hot- tears- melting- my- face- thankful. It could have all turned out so different at every crossroad on the journey.
Thank you line.
Love,
dot
10 comments:
If I had to do it all over again I'd do it with you Dot!!!!!! Thanks for the best 21 years of my life! :)
Beautiful, Kathleen. Just beautiful.
Ditto Loverby. Thx Glynn.
just... quieted... so... poignant
"He is safe for me to be real, so I never have to be anything else."
I love that. And it's no small thing.
I know, because my husband is the same for me.
Your beautiful story reminds me of my parents story. They were 18 years old when they married. Fresh out of high school and 4 months pregnant with me! Thirty-one years later they are still married and how they lived through the pins and needles of life (namely, a painful addiction) will always leave me breathless.
I now face my own marriage (going on a teeny-tiny 3 years) and it's pins and needles and somedays wonder how we'll make it 31 years... but pray that God will hold our hands (and spank our behinds) along the way. :)
Thank you for your honesty and love story.
Kathleen,
This was a love story. A life story.
Yours alone.
There is always beauty in that. Bless you for many more years . How inspiring.
Oh, what Ann said. I think it is one of the beauties and quiet graces of marriage that we can be safe and real, warts and all. I came from a history of verbal and emotional abuse, so it was so hard to accept and believe when James and I first married. Now we are going on ten years, and it is his greatest gift to me.
Thanks for sharing your story, Kathleen.
You're a fortunate woman also Ann, your husband gives you a gift. Deb, thank you. Happy ten Joy. :) Believe James! I think that is the gift we give back to them....
Love takes itself round in the strangest ways. Sometimes it has to dive deep; sometimes just be; sometimes soar. What it is at any one moment is what it can be, might have been, was, will be at another time in another place at another hour before another life and after. It's at its best when we feel it with a look, a word, a touch, when it is the second time around that becomes the first you always wished for.
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