Past, Present, and Future

Kevin has challenged me to consider who or what it is I'm married to.

Before going into that, I should first provide MY half of what has brought on this need for introspection.

Thursday was one of those all around bad days. The type of day where you really should have just stayed in bed. I'd worked late on both Monday and Tuesday and then been out late on Wednesday to do holiday shopping. My 17 kids are wired and, while normally well-behaved, are impatient for the Christmas break. I, too, am feeling burned out and craving the vacation time. As a result, I feel like I'm running into a wall with them, as I try to get in as much as I can before they go home for break and everything I've taught them so far is forgotten. Meanwhile, teaching them is more difficult than normal because visions of sugar plums are dancing in their heads. So on Thursday, I had had a bad day and still had many things to do at work, but had to leave because I had to get home to take the cat to the vet to get her shots updated since we're boarding her while we go away over the holidays. I came home, having not had any lunch, made a sandwich, put the cat into the carrier, ignoring the anguished crying, and drove to the vet, stopping along the way to pick up nylons needed for later that night. After just over an hour at the vet (and a hefty bill), I came back home, thinking that I had an hour and a half to get ready, only to be told the party was an hour earlier than I had orginally been told, and that cut my time down to half an hour to prepare for a formal event. Managed to make the transformation in just under 45 minutes (after a clothing crisis where my husband decided he was going to dress much more casually than he had the year before and I had anticipated) and was out the door. We got to the event and then found we had nowhere to sit, as we had arrived late. The end result was that we ended up at the Command table, literally under the spotlight. I was extremely uncomfortable all through dinner and the awkwardness climaxed when the DJ asked the Command table to lead off the dancing, assuming that everybody at the table was actually SOMEBODY. So if anybody had missed the fact that we were sitting there before, they all knew now. All in all, just a day to be forgotten. However, the next morning didn't start off well. I woke up to 30 degree temps, strong winds and POURING rain.

Meanwhile, Kevin got off work at 11 on Thursday, then went out to lunch with some buddies. He then spent the remainder of Thursday morning listening to the radio, wrapping Christmas gifts and drinking hot chocolate. The next morning, he couldn't understand why I was so unreasonably upset about the weather and concluded that I had a lousy attitude....and then opened the whole thing up by writing about it in his blog, which I discovered during my lunch break on Friday. I had really gotten over the previous day and that morning, but was angry again after seeing my "problems" from HIS perspective on his very public forum.

So that leads us up to now. He's right that I think people tend to be "married" to their memories. It's human nature to cling to what we know and be a little anxious of those things we are less familiar with. For (some?) women, I think there is another definition for "marriage." Definition: to experience a sense of self-loss. I don't consider myself to be an extreme feminist. I think that I fulfill fairly traditional roles. But over the last several months, I have experienced a weird sense of "loss" on a couple occasions. Of the two of us, Kev has the more outgoing personality. I tend to be the type of person who needs to stand back for awhile and assess new territory before moving in. Comparatively, my husband jumps in instantly, with both feet. As a result, I have often found myself being "Mrs. So-and-So". Not only is this odd because I was a Ms. for 23 years, but also because it's literally a surname that I've only recently taken on. I don't regret the decision to give up my maiden name, but it IS an example of change.
Another change (which actually occurred for the first time last year) is my definition of "winter." I HATE rain. Rather, I hate to be wet. I like the rain when I can be inside. But when I have to venture out, I hate it. Growing up in Pennsylvania, winter meant cold temps and snow. And snow meant the magic of snow days. Even though you have to make missed days up later, there's something to be said about that magic moment when school is cancelled. For me, that little thrill has never gone away. I love the way it looks early in the morning, when the sun is not up yet. I can lay in bed, blinds down, and know whether or not it has snowed overnight. The snow mutes everything and there's a distinctive and magic stillness that you can FEEL. Here, living where we do now, that doesn't happen. Snow is very rare and instead our winters are WET, WET, WET. I miss my winters.
Finally, Kevin has a hard time allowing me to have a bad day. He's very analytical, I'm very emotional. When he's upset, he analyzes the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How, and then draws up a plan to fix it. As a result, it's hard for him to accept that when I have a bad day, I'm just having a bad day. It'll be better tomorrow, but I don't necessarily want to pick the problem apart, I just want the day to pass.

So...who am I married to? I'm married to someone who will bend over backwards to "fix it", but has a hard time when the situation doesn't really call for a fix, merely a passing of time. I'm married to someone who has a different childhood, different memories, different way of doing things than I do. I'm married to someone who is as practical as I am emotional. I agree, yes, that we cling to, or are "married" to, those ways of being that we are most familiar with. But I find that we are most tightly bound when it seems as if everything else has changed and we are searching for stability. I am willing to release some of my traditions in the name of making new ones, but we can't shuck off our entire histories without some pain, too. Leaving some things behind leaves holes that can't be immediately filled with the new. And that's painful. I think that the best we can do is to promise to keep moving forward, with new spouses and with new families, and leave behind those little pieces gradually. Those that are truly important will remain and, many years down the road, I hope my children will be going through the same struggle. Because that will prove that I've done my job providing a good, loving, and happy home.