Blue Collar Muse

A little after 7PM, 21 years ago today, I remember seeing the bride walk down the aisle. She was, of course, beautiful - as all brides are. This one, far more so, however. She was walking down the aisle towards me.

Over the last 21 years, we’ve had our ups and downs, good times and bad. We even had a couple of times where we might have thrown in the towel and walked away from each other. The issues seemed far more serious then than they do now, in hindsight, but they were serious. Yet I am forever grateful that we chose, for whatever reason, none of the doors available to us on either side. Instead, we just kept walking down a hall that often seemed to get narrower as things got worse. I see now what I couldn’t see then, that narrowing actually forced us closer together. Eventually, we had to touch shoulders in the center of the hall; we had to meet in the middle. Once met, it seemed natural, if not a bit awkward, to hold hands again and just keep going on. I’d like to say that I was a strong and loving leader in my marriage. The truth is I was just a scared and hurting human being. What saved me - and us - was that in the final analysis, I was more afraid of the pain of living life without this most amazing woman than I was of the pain of parting company.

Oddly, I don’t think our experience is all that exceptional. I mean no disrespect to anyone else who made different choices at difficult times in their lives. But from this side of some pretty interesting times in our past, I have to say that the entire 21 year process, from the highest highs to the lowest lows, has worked to make our marriage fantastic today. I’m quite sure I would not feel the way I feel today - the depths of love, commitment and sacrifice - had we not passed through the fire. What we have today is worth whatever personal price I may have had to pay.

That’s pretty much the way life is in most areas. It’s simply harder to see the truth of it while embroiled in the details of a painful experience. It is true that the more someone knows about us, the more intimate we are, the greater danger that person represents. They know where all the skeletons are buried and all the right buttons to push to bypass all the preliminaries and head right for the throat. We see that heartbreaking scenario played out in divorce courts all too frequently.

But consider how it makes me feel to know that The Much Younger Trophy Wife knows not only my good points, but all my bad ones, too. She waters the good and prays and works to weed out the bad. But she never complains or throws my all too evident faults and shortcomings in my face. She knows all the failure, personal and otherwise, in my past. Instead of reminding me of it and beating me up with it, she hides it from everyone but her. In the words of today’s kids, she’s got my back. Understand, she doesn’t ignore it or pretend it’s not there. But instead of harping on my failure, she prays intercessory prayers over me and encourages me whenever she finds something positive to praise and looks forward to the day when I’ll be better instead of back to when I was pathetic. How prized and valuable do you think I feel to know that she knows all that there is that is bad to know about me (we need not speculate as to how much of that there is - there’s plenty) and yet she loves me still and chooses each day to allow me into her life?

How must I feel to understand that she intentionally looks past all the junk to find the good in me and works to call that man forth? The joy and appreciation of being loved despite being known for who I am and the commitment it produces in me to be better today than I was yesterday, to serve and love her more, to try and be everything she needs and wants in a husband is sometimes overwhelming. I wouldn’t trade the joy of being known completely and loved anyway for the false security of being known partially or not at all or having someone know a carefully crafted persona that is not real and hearing them say they love the stranger whose life I show them. Unless I know she knows me, how can I know she really loves me? For all the danger intimacy presents, it is still the only guarantee of relational happiness.

After 21 years, I still pinch myself sometimes to make sure I’m not dreaming. Because in every way, every day, the young girl I married that October evening has become the most lovely, gracious, elegant and beautiful woman I have ever met or ever hope to meet. I freely acknowledge that I married the better spouse as I try daily to narrrow the gap and become what she needs me to be. I thought I knew what love was in 1986. What nonsense! But I love her more today than then and will continue to learn how much I don’t know about love over the next 21 years. I hope, one day, to be worthy of the term “husband” to this exquisite woman. I’m sure it will take years, but I’m looking forward to the rest of the journey.

I likely wouldn’t have signed on, those many years ago, had I known some of what the future held. Sometimes dreams can be bad, sometimes they’re real nightmares. But in living day to day, and finding love and acceptance from another human being who gives it out of fully informed choice, I find myself sure that I would do it all again to get to this place. It may not have seemed so at times, but in more ways than I have time or space to say, my dreams came true - all of them and in every way - that lovely October day. Thank you, honey, for loving me and allowing me to love you.

Thinking that “Happy Anniversary!” holds so much more meaning than you know …

Blue Collar Muse

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2007 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Family, Individual Responsibility. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.