Archive: Favorites

Yesterday was the seventh anniversary of when JG and I started dating, and I forgot to write out a card for him to find in the morning. I only remembered after the fact as I was driving to work, and I didn’t even feel guilty, that is, until the guilt immediately set in about my apathy. I’m rolling my eyes just thinking about it: I felt guilty for not feeling bad about writing JG a card for the anniversary of when we officially decided that we were dating, even though everyone else we knew already assumed that was the case. Yes, I thought so. It was ridiculous.

When we were dating, I had a habit of extrapolating every struggle we had and viewing it under the When We’re Married lens. How will we decide which channel to watch when we’re married? What if we don’t get any better at phone conversations for when we’re married? Will JG ditch me for more exciting plans when we’re married? How will I know when to push an issue when we’re married? And so on. It made sense in my mind because I wanted to explore every little possibility and tackle it proactively. This habit made for long, tearful conversations, and on more than one occasion, JG looked at me in exasperation, and asked, “Why do we have to settle this now?” At first, those words hit a nerve with me — wasn’t he invested in our future? Over time, I realized that it was more constructive for me to identify patterns of behavior rather than speculate on every little bump in the road. If I had known that the answers to my questions would come in the form of DVR; we won’t get better; no, he won’t; and I will have no clue, I doubt that I would have spent as much time and energy on that train of thought.

Despite all the analysis, I failed to consider the possibility of good things we did that we might not continue in the future: namely, small celebrations. JG and I used to send each other cards for every occasion, even for things like getting through a tough exam. Campus mail was free, and I have a battered shoebox full of notes from those days. It’s an old story about magic fading and little things being swept under the rug, but I never thought about it for us. That was for other people, out there, in the ether, not us. But now, I have to wonder: is routine where sentiment goes to die?

The reality is that someone needs to pay the bills, cook the food, clean the house, maintain the cars, keep up the calendar, and see to all the gritty things that compose the daily grind and leave precious little room for thinking about special occasions to come and whether one has a nice little card waiting in the wings. It’s not that being sentimental is impossible under the strain of everyday life, but the conditions aren’t exactly conducive to it. I don’t mean to hold myself to an unrealistic expectation or set up legalistic obligations about what our relationship should look like, and I’m not measuring my marriage in terms of notes in a shoebox. I don’t necessarily blame myself for forgetting, but I don’t like that I did.

As I expected, JG didn’t mind at all, but he understood where I was coming from when I said that I didn’t want to be one of those people who remembers an important date and observes it in saying, “Hey, could you empty the washer so I can start a load of laundry? Oh, and happy twentieth anniversary, honey.”

There I go again, extrapolating, which is still, unsurprisingly, an exercise in futility.

Before bed, JG and I curled up together and mused about how young we were when we started dating, and how long ago we started being a “we” on that October 1 of yore. Too soon, JG succumbed to sleep, but I paused before turning on my book light to turn over our shared memories in my mind. It’s funny how fond remembrance makes things sweet over time, and now that I think about it, that might be the whole point of this anniversary thing.

The other day at the grocery store, a friend and I were standing in line behind a young woman, and if her pointy flats and red jacket were any indication, she had come straight from work. The front end was mobbed, as it was to be expected at that time, and the lines snaked across the wide main aisle into the end caps displaying paper towels and cake mixes. During the wait, the girl in front of me set about rearranging the contents of her cart. She put her small, black purse in the front section, where someone else might put a young child, and deftly moved cans, meat, and produce according to her liking. The configuration was not immediately intuitive to me except that similar items stayed together, and fragile things like eggs and bread stayed in the top portion of the cart. Focused on her task, she only looked up to advance when the line inched forward, and when she was finished, she stood with keys in hand, ready to give her savings card to the cashier. My friend and I exchanged a sideways glance, and I had the feeling that the girl had picked this line specifically for this practiced maneuver.

- – - – -

Confession: I was the girl in the red jacket, and after a solo grocery run, I like to pick a line that gives me enough time to pull myself together. When I was at the store on Friday, I felt strangely self-conscious during my ritual, overly aware of the women behind me in line: blonde, about my age, but maybe slightly older. I suddenly saw that what was common sense to me (arrange the groceries for optimum bagging speed, minimal breakage, and decreased chance of being outpaced by the conveyor belt) probably seemed tightly-wound and excessively strategic to the innocent bystander. Before I could stop it, the thought darted through my brain:

What if one of them has a blog?

I already could see the lines forming, as though in a cloud hovering above the register: “I was behind the most psycho girl at the grocery store last night — who does this?!” For the first time, I realized that if I am always on the lookout for blog content, everyone else I come into contact with might be on that same mission. Am I providing a sarcastic anecdote somewhere online? Have my indignant customer service complaints made it to a blog that chronicles the travails of customer service representatives? (It must exist; there is too much material available.) The irony does not escape me that even as I am willing to write a snappy post about whoever I encounter, the thought of someone doing the same to me strikes fear into my heart.

It’s not as though I think I am so notable as to earn a place in someone’s bliggity blog or facie spacie or tweety page; it’s the idea that everyone else around me is potentially scanning the room for stories to tell that might cast me in the role of Insane Woman In Red Jacket. But I always load the conveyor belt slower than it runs! And then I panic! And then the cashier bags everything all crazy! It makes a little sense, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it?!

(Okay, maybe I really am Insane Woman In Red Jacket. Nice to meet you.)

What to do? I suppose one way to avoid being someone else’s blog fodder is to stay unremarkable, whether for good or bad. If I don’t screw up, take a stand, try something new, question my actions, or excel, no one will have anything to say. But if that’s my plan, I won’t do much of anything.

No, thank you.

I got my hair cut last night, and as my awesome stylist settled me into the chair, she said, “Since you were last here, I got engaged — ”

A congratulatory squeal was halfway out of my mouth when she cut me off.

” — and I broke it off.”

Oh!

She told me how her reluctance to commit had been growing without her noticing, how she didn’t miss her boyfriend when she went away for work, and how she felt like she had to say yes when he proposed a few weeks later because they’d been together for seven years. But then she felt like a liar wearing the ring, and she wasn’t excited about thinking or talking about a wedding. Her boyfriend has a 5-year-old son, and up until recently, she had been fine with the idea of getting married and having an instant family, but all of a sudden — “like a switch went off in me,” she said — she didn’t know what she wanted any more. She gave the ring back, and now they’re alternating living in the townhouse they own until they figure out what to do with everything.

She sounded practiced, as though she had grown accustomed to her story, and I wasn’t sure what compelled her to tell me. Our normal chitchat consists of reporting back vacations, commiserating about family holiday gatherings, and commenting on fun shoes (mine) and cool outfits (hers). I was not prepared for the plunge into actual personal conversation, but there we were.

I asked her how she was feeling about her decision, and she sounded relieved and fairly confident, considering everything that was changing for her. She planned to take a road trip in California with her mom at the end of the month, and she said she was ready for a new chapter in her life. It was scary, she admitted, but she knew she made the right decision.

And then she asked me, “Did you ever have doubts before you got married?”

Huh.

My immediate reaction was that I honestly can’t remember because it was so long ago. JG and I got engaged almost five years ago! We were still in school! Neither of us had a job! (What the heck were we thinking?) I was so crazed with finishing my classes, finding a job, and planning a wedding that I almost didn’t have room to wonder if we were doing the right thing. All the same, I was confident of it in a deep, eerie way that was very unlike me.

We had our low points. There was a whole tiff about JG’s quasi-bachelor-party-actually-a-rock-climbing-trip. There was the tearful discussion about vows and how he didn’t want to say “until death do us part,” but I couldn’t imagine not saying it (we ended up saying “for as long as we both shall live”). There was that first dreadful marriage counseling session when I looked JG straight in the eye and realized that we were not speaking the same language, no, not even close, and I had a flash of fear that this lack of comprehension would characterize the rest of my life.

When I think about doubt during our engagement, the conflict arose from me feeling as though I were failing in some aspect of our relationship: I wasn’t considerate enough (rock climbing trip), I wasn’t flexible enough (vows), and I wasn’t communicating enough (counseling). Some of that self-flagellation was unwarranted, but regardless, I never had a crisis point where I thought I shouldn’t marry JG. That was the given. The real question was how I was going to handle being married to him.

Since being married, though, I’ve had my fair share of doubt. Between that first phase of figuring out the practicalities of building a household amid the mythical newlywed bliss, the struggle of finding and buying a house, and learning how to navigate being part of an in-law family, there was plenty that caused me to question. Late at night, when the worst moments of panic tend to arise, I wonder if I have limited myself by becoming a Mrs. so early in life. Is that why I haven’t gone to graduate school? Is that why I never backpacked across Europe?

No. Even if I hadn’t gotten married, if I chose to go straight into the workforce as I did when I first graduated, I would have had quite the problem finding the time and money to backpack across Europe, much less go to graduate school. To blame my marriage for whatever perceived lack of life experience I have is short-sighted and unconstructive, but I’m not exactly foresighted or practical when anxiety takes hold.

In those dark moments, I never truly doubt marrying JG. Our marriage is bedrock beneath me: supportive when I need it, but painful when I fall short. When I can breathe quietly and start to try to sleep again, I reach my hand out and rest it on the small of JG’s back. He’s still here, and so am I.

Unfortunately, I could not come up with anything nearly as articulate as I sat in that salon. I nattered on about not knowing what to expect about living together and relying on the fact that JG and I were on the same page about life, but I’m afraid I may have come off as falsely confident. What I really wanted to convey, dear stylist, is that even though I never doubted getting married, I doubted myself all the time.

For all of JG’s volleyball coaching, he hasn’t had a chance to play regularly since high school. It’s hard to find teams for adults that are competitive and athletic, and I’ve always felt like that was a missing part in JG’s life. On Friday, at the suggestion from a friend, he tried out a recreational volleyball league, and I went along. The teams seemed fairly competitive, and the facility was halfway decent, so I hoped that JG would fit in and have fun with everyone. Despite losing the match and playing without a sixth player, it looked like he getting a good workout, even if he was somewhat rusty. Just in case the games weren’t exciting, I brought a book, but I ended up standing and cheering for two hours. That’s love.

On Saturday morning, JG and I exchanged our small Valentine’s Day gifts. JG gave me a microplane zester, a laminated map of Denver, and a Denver travel book, in preparation for our not-too-distant vacation. I gave him a nerdy t-shirt and a CD case for his car filled with some of his favorite albums. I had to burn the discs secretly at work, which means that my computer is now the proud owner of ripped ska and Billy Joel. That’s love.

Traditionally, JG makes a dinner of my choice, and I bake a dessert he requests. This year, I got off easy because he asked for chocolate chip bar cookies, which are a walk in the park: mix, dump, bake, and cut! I made sure to bake them according to JG’s preference, which is to say, rare. For his part, JG spent most of Saturday babysitting a rack of ribs for dinner. He shook up a rub, made a braising liquid, and stirred together a homemade sauce, and we feasted on porky goodness. That’s love.

We went out for dinner on Sunday night to one of our favorite places, an Asian fusion restaurant where JG first tried sushi a few years ago. We ordered sushi to start, and I went out on a limb and ordered a specialty roll we’d never tried before.  Holy goodness, it was amazing. I don’t know exactly what was in it, but JG even admitted that he would just keep eating that roll until he was full, which is a compliment of the highest order. Unfortunately, it was only cut into five pieces, and it became clear pretty quickly that we would have to fight for that last piece. Eventually, there were two pieces of sushi left: one amazing roll and one rainbow roll. Not one to take the first swing, I set my chopsticks down and took a sip of my ginger martini. JG nodded at me and said, “Go ahead. I’ll take the rainbow roll.”  That’s love.