Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals

Here’s a bit of advice I can give you for free.

Marriage is hard.

If I think back to my childhood, I think I imagined marriage to be great big white wedding dresses and awesome rock star parties that lasted forever. Marriage clearly equaled a wedding, for me, at some random age growing up.  Naturally, it’s a far cry from reality- take a traditional Zulu wedding and marriage for example, or a prearranged Indian marriage.

And clearly my illusions of whatever grandeur marriage was, were mostly tainted because for 12 years of my school-going life, I actually didn’t live under my parents roof for 75% of the week, so I never actually saw  and understood what it took to make a marriage work.

In hindsight, mutual respect for each-others’ way of life and their beliefs is what I thought made my parents live through a successful marriage.  Obviously, love for one another, but love can often be so intangible, that it’s signs are subtle, and often go unnoticed.  They certainly didn’t stare longingly into each-others eyes ever the breakfast table.  And the clock-setting, regular kettle-boiling-sessions for mid morning and evening tea times were more routine, and less a sign of their undying love for one another. And of course, Dad was always Dad, and Mom was always Mom. They always stood united in front of us.  They showed me that parents stand united to support their children.

Of my 38 years, I lived exclusively with my folks for 6 childhood years.  Between the ages of 6 and 18, I spent 40 weeks out of 52 at boarding school.  I left home at the age of 18, lived a hedonistic singles life far away from them until I got married when I was 29. I think the most amount of ‘adult’ time I spent actually being at the farm in that decade was 4 months between December 2002 and March 2003. I got married 3 years later, and have spent the last decade not observing a marriage, but actually living my own.

Let me say this again.  Marriage is hard.  So is parenthood.  And generally speaking, life is too. But for now, let me just say, that marriage is hard.

It is also hugely rewarding too. And warm. And a comfortable place, a place of content. It’s a second skin, a familiar, scented blanket, somewhere you can be yourself and not be judged.

It’s also deeply challenging.

Yes, marriage is a challenge too.  Often in life, if we come across something that we don’t like or feel comfortable with, we react in 2 ways.  We either fight it, or flee it. If you have made a commitment to marriage for the correct reasons, you cannot flee from it, so you generally have to face up to the challenges that it puts up.  Granted, some challenges are more erosive and harmful, but that in itself- a decision to flee it, confronts the situation because you have to, and you can’t just led it slide over, hoping, praying, begging that it just disappears like water under  a bridge.

Speaking from my (slightly shattered) heart, I will say with conviction that I am a broken person.  I have dozens of faults lying across my heart, my soul, but this does not make me a bad person.  I know what my limits are, and I know that in order to be content and happy, I have to find that myself.  Nobody is going to supply me whatever my happy place is on a silver platter.

With this little admission, I can say that marriage is hard.  Both people have to work on it.  I need a hand up often- a hand to lift me from a scary inferno, and at the same time, I need to offer myself too, I need to be available.  Marriage is about compromising.  Marriage is about talking and communicating, and listening and is about understanding.  It’s about having patience, and it’s about finding that place where each person can be themselves, and still achieve personal growth.

And it is also about love.

And this is the man that I love.

He is the man I forgave for breaking my heart once, years ago. He is the man that I returned to after those hedonistic years that I hid from my parents.  He is the man that I think about each and every day.  He is the one who I want to tell everything to.  He is the one I want to be quiet with. He is the man who I want at my side when I’m crying, or when I’m laughing. He is the man I want to wake up to every morning and not just because he brings me coffee in bed.  He shares the same family values that I have.  He is the man that I gave my body to, he is the man I chose to be the father of our children, because he is my everything.

He’s not perfect.  Neither am I.  We’ve had times where we haven’t spoken. We’ve had times where we’ve stopped each-other from growing personally.  Individually we have each stood firm in a selfish belief that sometimes we don’t need to compromise.  But I have this little thing that I believe in.  “Nothing that is good in life comes for free.”  It’s not an overly  positive saying,  but when last did you make an easy buck by sitting on your arse?  Marriage may be hard, but if you don’t work at it, do you really deserve the benefits that comes with it?

I love having the smell of coffee waft under my nose right from my bedside table.  I love it when I get an IM ping somewhere to say hello, I’m thinking of you.  I love having reason to cook a tasty meal (because let’s face it- when last did your kids appreciate anything you cooked for them?).  I love the smell of his cologne on the pillow if he’s not there.  I love being able to reach out under the bed sheets to pinky-grip his fingers.  I love it that when I’ve had nightmares recently he’s put his hand between my shoulders to tell me it’s okay, he’s there for me. I love that he’s a soundboard to our children when I lapse into my awful shrieking-mother moments, and that he is a masculine voice of reason when I’m an emotional, over-thinking feminine creature.

Today marks the celebration of us being married for 10 years.

Thank you my darling angel for providing me with security and love.  I pray and ask for us to continue to remind each-other who we are to one-another, and to never take each-other for granted.

In conclusion, I thought I would schmaltz you with the words from your favourite poet, who we slow-danced to 17 and a half years ago, in my roach-infested duplex on the outskirts of the Pilanesberg.

And I will love you, baby, always
And I’ll be there forever and a day, always
I’ll be there ’til the stars don’t shine
‘Til the heavens burst and the words don’t rhyme
And I know when I die,
You’ll be on my mind
And I’ll love you, always

Will you slow dance with me tonight?

Xxx