A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Last night I stuffed wedding invitations and began the first draft of my wedding vows.  Twenty years ago I did the same thing.  I was married for ten years to an awesome man, father and one of the most compassionate and kind souls on the planet.  I've remained very close to my ex-husband since our divorce almost 12 years ago.  I consider him one of my best friends, a confidant, and partner in life, and I know that we will walk a journey together till death do us part.  So, why did we divorce?  Sounds like I lived up to my vows from 20 years before, doesn't it?  The details of my divorce are very private, but I will go so far to say that however compassionate, kind and awesome that man was, I didn't feel like he was mine.  I felt that he belonged to someone else... someone he hadn't met yet, but needed to.  And he did.  And he is happy. 

Since then, I never fathomed getting married again.  I could not reconcile vowing to feel a certain way for the rest of my life.  I couldn't understand how anyone could remotely promise anything to anybody beyond the immediate present moment.  People change, people grow, feelings morph and alter, and priorities and visions constantly shift.  The constant and pounding waves of life are relentless and what our truth is for the present moment can look very different come the next day or 15 years out.  Lastly, I could not see a good enough reason to get married.  I had my beautiful son, I could make my way financially, and I saw no purpose to a piece of paper from the government tying myself to another being forever.  The whole institution seemed ridiculous and hypocritical to me for a myriad of reasons.  I found myself cringing at other people's weddings when they looked into each others eyes and vowed to love each other with their entire being, every moment of every day for the rest of their lives.  I wanted to scream out, "Oh hell no you won't'!  There will be days you want to pull his hair out, toss his clothes into the street (for no other reason than that you are bored out of your mind), and run as fast as you can to the nearest bar so you don't have to look at him for a few hours!"  I apologize to the engaged out there, don't mean to burst your love bubble, but there WILL be days like that. 

Fast forward to March, 2012.  As he was on one knee with the shining diamond glaring at me and that all important question in the air,  I found myself wanting to throw up.  I don't remember much of what happened that early evening on the beach, but I do recall waving my hands in the air, backing up from him and saying No, No, No over and over again until my eyes teared up and a very sure, very calming, very confident YES slipped from my lips.  As the ring glided onto my finger, the realization that I was getting married for real hit me like one of those boulders by the sand in Cardiff-By-The-Sea.

What changed in me that I was able to allow myself to re-enter the marriage institution?  It's not that my views have changed regarding marriage.  I continue to believe that vowing to feel a certain feeling and be a certain person for the rest of my life is still bunk.  I continue to believe that I don't need a piece of paper to keep a man around, and I still believe that people grow, change, morph and that the saying as feelings grow they become stronger is not necessarily the case.  What changed in me was the realization that I was committing to a process of being with another person.  There is a difference.  I came to peace with the fact that I am not committing to being the same person he fell in love with for the rest of my life.  I am too old to believe that.  I have been 10 different people over the course of my life, given my experiences and my changing values (thank god!).  I have come to understand that I will be committing to include him on my individual walk of life, and he will be including me on his.  We may want to walk in different directions at times, and that is OK!  I am committing to always finding him when that happens and walk a few miles with him on his path, until the trail bends and he walks a few miles with me on mine.  Finally, I have come to peace with the phrase, till death do you part.  My life is more than half over.  I want to spend the second half with THIS man.

So, maybe I've come to terms with marriage for all the reasons I've stated.  Or, perhaps, he did some secret-army-interrogation-magic-mindmelt-thingy that he learned in the military to get me to change my ideas about marriage.  Wouldn't surprise me if he did.  :)

Make it a great day!
Michey

The Story in My Head

I am packing up my son's bedroom.  And no, he is not here to help me do so.  This is not the way the story in my head went for the past 18 years.  The story in my head was always that we would pack up his belongings together, laugh out loud at the tiny discoveries we would uncover as we opened drawers and found childhood treasures long forgotten, reminisce and romanticize events during his growing up years that seemed so serious then and only now could be seen as minute, laughable pebbles on the trail of his life, and then take him shopping for dorm necessities, then a road trip to a 4 year university, drop him off, cry as we were leaving him, cry all the way home and then change his room to an art studio or some other underused place in the house.  That was the story in my head.  That is not HIS story.  I don't know if it ever was.

I have learned more in the past 4 months than I have learned in the past 10 years combined.  I have learned more about healthy detachment to ALL the stories in my head, and what separates reality from distorted thinking.  I have learned (relearned?) what true compassion, tolerance and acceptance is.  I have learned (relearned?) how strong we can be when we are faced with no other choice but to be.  I have learned (relearned?) that no matter how hard something is to face, that you will miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And I have learned more about TRUE love, REAL gratitude and TOTAL appreciation than I can express in words on this page. 

Most of all, I have learned how to deeply, unconditionally, from the depths of my being, embrace change, reset priorities, be spontaneous and release all expected outcomes.  We are given one life to live... and like video games where your actions and choices affect how the game progresses and results, the outcomes are endless.  Isn't that what makes them so fun to play?

The journey of our life is a theater and we improv our way through it. My child is teaching me this daily.  And I love him for the gifts that he is bringing to me and for his wisdom he is bringing to the world. 

My son has been an inspiration to me, and his strength and fortitude has strengthened my family.  Yes, I am packing up his bedroom today, and he is embarking on the rest of his story.  I can't wait to see how it unfolds, and I will be right there in the front row, eagerly anticipating the next chapter....

And Noah.....
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

PRAY ME THIS

I don't pray.  I don't know what to say, what words to use, who's listening.  I sometimes talk to my departed dad and ask for guidance and strength, as well as any influence he may have in making things in the universe work out the way they should.  This is about as close as I get to praying.  It works for me. And perhaps some would say that was real praying.  And perhaps they would be right.  I really don't know. 

Tonight, someone wanted to pray with me.  She was a person of Christian faith,  close to me, and who knows me and loves me.  I agreed.

She took my hands in hers, started talking to God and asking NOT for things to be perfect, NOT for the RIGHT outcome, NOT for what I would specifically want, but something else entirely. As we were holding hands, she asked God to allow me to be STILL so that I could be open to receiving the message He was trying to send me.  Of course, she didn't know what message that was, I certainly didn't, but nonetheless the words were effortless for her.  Not just effortless, but flowing and stunning and gorgeously graceful. What enthralled me in her delivery of this prayer was her complete belief, one hundred percent faith, that it would work.  She glowed as she was praying (I know prayer protocol requires that my eyes be kept shut in prayer but I couldn't help myself but look at her, plus I'm a horrible rule follower). 

As she was talking (praying), I found myself welling up.  At first, I felt a tingle and an energy go up my spine.  And then the flood gates opened and tears flowed and I lost it.  I don't know what that was about, why it hit me the way it did.... It was a guttural response on some level that I cannot explain.

Whatever overtook me at that moment, I want to honor.  I don't know what it was. But it was something important.

I think I need to be STILL, to figure it out.  And dad, if you're here, help me out.

Your loving daughter,
Michey

31,536,000 seconds

So, another year has passed us by. A year, 365 days, 8,760 hours, 525,600 minutes, 31,536,000 seconds. Gone forever. Nope, can't call a do-over, can't change your actions, your emotions, or your behaviors. Can't take back something said in a moment of frustration and anger, can't change a decision you made on the 4321st hour of last year, and you certainly can't relive the glorious 995,000th second of 2011. All of that doesn't exist anymore. It's in the past now, as it should be, as it's supposed to be. For better or for worse. And I like it that way.

My Nana taught me to never live with regrets. She told me that she regretted the majority of her life. She questioned why she didn't do the things she really wanted to do. She stated that if she had the chance to do a do-over that she would make all different decisions. Right before she died she told me to LIVE and live deeply because you don't get a second chance. "Dance, Mich, and don't stop dancing, even if you fall down," she claimed. (She was a dancer, always wanted to be on Broadway and she should have been)

I greatly loved my Nana. She was a foul mouthed, outspoken, brash, sexy, strong, opinionated woman (wore 4 inch heels well into her eighties - street credit in my eyes). She once said to me, while I attempted, without success, to breast feed my son, that I should give up trying because "only peasants breast feed their babies." In my younger years she advised me that I should always have lunch in a hospital cafeteria in hopes of meeting a nice, Jewish doctor. That same opinionated, outspoken woman, who (even though she was nuts) I thought LIVED her life HER way, did not. She died with regrets and a broken heart. That knowledge broke my own heart, and I vowed to stay true to my soul and my reason, and live my life without asking for moments back.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no angel. I have done things in my life that would not be described as wholesome (as a special person in my life often likes to remind me). I still do from time to time. But I do so with my Nana's blessing, the fact that we go around only once, and the knowledge that out of the 31,536,000 seconds in a year, I'm dancing through all of them, good and bad, without regrets, and not asking for do-overs.

Bring on 2012!

Make it a great year!

All my love,
Michey