We Hope It Helped

November 19, 2005

Some of you have asked if the Young Adults came to our house yet and indeed they did…and kept us up until 1 am, I might add. I am 30 years old and I’m generally in my jammies by 7:00 pm. Even Especially on Friday and Saturday nights. I just don’t think 1 am was particularly good for me. But I was suckered into it because the night they were here happened to be the night we changed our clocks back one hour and it was amazing how easily they convinced us we were coming out ahead. But then I thought, OK, so now we are going to bed at midnight instead of 1 am. Am I the only one who’s noticed that we are still missing two hours of sleep since we would have normally gone to bed at 10 pm? Anyway. This little rabbit trail serves no purpose whatsoever other than to say that apparently we are old married farts trying way too hard to be cool young adults.

As I was saying, they came. With the exception of me talking way too much, I think a good time was had by all. By the way, that’s one thing I don’t like about myself. I talk too much. And I lack clarity. And I so often don’t finish my sentences. I know I do all these things and yet I still do them. This is what I call the Paul Syndrome. You know, “I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)

Anyway, hi second rabbit trail.

OK, so basically we told them how NOT to date and stuff. We talked about how horrible marriage can be, or at least how horrible it was for us, and I think we accomplished our goal of scaring the bejeebies out of them as best we could. I’m only half joking. You see, I’ve got a pet peeve and it usually comes in the form of “…and they lived happily ever after.” Gag me with a spoon (why the Spirit of Valley Girl just came over me I have no idea). But I think living “happily ever after” is a bunch of crap. Maybe I should have included that in my list of marriage pointers too: (1) deal with your crap, (2) don’t marry a loser and (3) “happily ever after” is a big, fat, stinking lie. Why? Because marriage takes WORK and a whole lotta work in our case. Hollywood would have us think otherwise, of course, because who wants to end their movie with the guy and the girl finally getting together after all kinds of hoopla only to get divorced a year later? It wouldn’t sell because it’s too much like real life.

I’m not saying marriage isn’t happy. I am definitely happy being married. (But I certainly wasn’t the first five years, that’s for sure.) I’m just saying people so often jump into it quickly, with the expectation that things are going to move right along nicely with nary a bump in the road. Oh yeah, and if there’s a bump, well, there’s always divorce. I say no. You’ve gotta go into it REALLY MEANING (imagine that) what you say when you say “until death do us part” or you are doomed from the start my friend. By the way, this would be another appropriate time to emphasize point #2 which is DON’T MARRY A LOSER. A lifetime’s a long time to live with a loser.

Looking back, one thing I think we failed to do in all our expounding and carrying on was to talk about God’s grace, forgiveness and redemption. The fact of the matter is, God’s got this uncanny way of turning what we have totally screwed up into something completely amazing. This whole concept BLOWS MY MIND. How He works this out, I have no idea, but I ain’t asking questions. Not that it’s a good idea to screw up in the first place because the process of redemption is generally painful. And who wants pain? So again, I feel compelled to say, DON’T MARRY A LOSER. And don’t be a loser either, for that matter. In other words, DEAL WITH YOUR CRAP. Yep, I think that pretty much sums it up.

Category: Marriage

Comments

One Response to “We Hope It Helped”

  1. Laur
    November 28th, 2005 @ 8:07 pm

    thanks for this.

    and yes, the word ‘crap’ is warranted in this situation. i fully support that.

    not that i’m sitting on the brink of an engagement or anything, but i’m curious - while you’re on the subject, what are rocked your boat those first 5 years? i assume it has a great deal to do with the crap you and your husband had lying around. i’m not asking you to get super-specific (not that i would complain!), but, for the sake of those of us looking in the windows at married life, can you alleviate the inevitable shock a little?

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