My Thoughts on Marriage and Love
As you might already know, I am married to Erin. I can’t adequately express the joy this causes me, just to think that after so long I am married and that together we have this little baby. There is something about being married that makes aspects of my life seem more complete, more full, and more real. I didn’t know, before I met and dated and married her that I was missing so much in my life. In fact, as I sat in church the other day and thought about what I would say if I were asked to talk about how my life has changed since getting married and since having a child what I would say.
You see, before I got married I went through a lot of things that, honestly, would’ve been easier had I had someone right there to hold and tell me (and for me to tell) that everything would be okay or would (eventually) work out okay. At different points in my life I took stock of what was happening and what I was doing and whether or not there was room to allow for additional growth or change and whether or not that growth and/or change would cause a different or new affect in my life. You see, as a single man in his thirties, and at one point in my late twenties, when I’ve taken stock of what is happening or should be happening in my life I have found it difficult to imagine a scenario or series of events where I could possibly learn more about who I am or the world around me or how to deal with people. I knew that when invidivuals, like my parents, talked about marriage, it was terms of, “You have to wait to find out what it’s like,” and those vaguarities made it difficult for me to fathom what it meant to get married and to start a family. And even though I am relatively new to the post of husband and (even newer) father I find that the depth one can be submitted for growth is a lot larger than when I was single.
When I was twenty-eight I remember sitting down and considering the choices I made in my life. For those keeping score, this was before my dad sat me down and spoke to me about the series of choices I’d made and how I was failing at almost every turn (though I am not sure he would agree with my assessment). Some six or so months before that, when I thought I’d met someone I could be in love with and someone I thought I could marry, I thought about work and school and writing and decided that even though I’d failed to get a degree (at that point) or to date someone who wanted to marry me and whom I wanted to marry, and had had some poetry published (yuck!!!) but not any fiction. My assessment was different from the people around me and even though I held onto the notion of going back to school and getting a degree, what I realized then (and now) is that I don’t handle working multiple full-time (or part-time) jobs very well and the one thing school is, is a full-time job. Even if your work load is relatively light, you still have the burden of the work and job and responsibility.
However, what I did come up with was not what my parents had come up with. What I came up with was that I was on track and even though my path to completing my goals was slower than, say, cold tar, a turtle, snails, evolution, mountain building, and substantive change at BYU, I had nothing to worry about. What my parents came up with was that I had reached a point in my life where it was time to take responsibility for my actions and by extension it was also time to start making the hard decisions when it came to the choices I had been making in my life (to that point). What was coupled with this was my finally paying back money I owed, moving to New Hampshire, trusting that if I wanted to succeed in the field’s and area’s that I said were important to me it was time to take a few steps back and start over as an undergraduate in college, working low-paying jobs to help make ends meet, and eventually to accept the inspiration that maybe I needed to give Utah and (ouch!!!) Provo one more chance before I moved on.
None of these choices were easy. Especially when you consider that I have made, at times, a lot of money and often stand out in the environments where I work. Considering other choices in my life, to take the plunge and go back to school, to trust that BYU is a better choice for me (at the time) than Boston University, to believe that I am better of out of the work force full-time for at least three years are all important and all required a degree of faith. I had to extend that faith to my life and believe that if I wanted to advance in what I was doing I also had to trust that I could do what I had always said I wanted to do.
Enter Erin. She is my life. I cannot imagine life without her. I cannot imagine learning many of the things I have, since marriage, without her there. I am a more full and better person because I have a wife in my life. There are things I would’ve like to be different before marriage. Little quirks that I didn’t see in my life (and no, these are not things that my parents or siblings would actively know about) that needed someone who loved me and wanted to see me be better and who was patient with me so that I could recognize them and remove them. At the same time, because I am dealing with an individual, I am also dealing with someone who has completely different needs than me, I have had to learn how to communicate with her and by extension communicating with other women. The depth that accompanies marriage is something that I was unable to fathom and once I was tossed in, unaware of how scary it really is.
During the birth of our child Erin asked me to stay with the baby. I followed him out of the room and to the NICU. I had to start making decisions that affected his life immediately and the doctors and nurses didn’t care that I’d been up for more than twenty-four hours and didn’t feel capable of rationally agreeing with what the doctors wanted and signing what I needed to sign. As a result of this, I discovered that the capacity for love, in most people, is infinite and even though, at times, I wonder how I could possibly love someone as much (and in very different ways) as I love Erin, or even increase the depth and breadth of my love for Erin, it is and it changes you as you realize that the reasons you are making the choices you are is because of that love.
I have also learned that love does not conquer all. It is a factor in the choices I have made and the reason I am married, but it requires a lot of effort to be married and to make other people’s needs more important than an individual’s wants. There are times when I would love to walk out the door and spend a lot of money, mostly because I can, and partly because, before marriage, I did. Now, I have to pay attention to the current and up-and-coming needs of our family. I really believe that it should come as no surprise to people who have known me for a long time that I would place my wife and family above everything else. Before marriage I often canceled things with friends when my siblings called or were in the hospital. Even when I lived with my parents in Colorado, I seriously considered driving to Utah to watch one of my siblings kids for a few days so that sibling could take spouse and go on a little honeymoon vacation. That would’ve been a considerable investment in time and money and the only reason I didn’t do it was because my parents suggested it was a bad idea and there was a better solution to the needs of that sibling.
The point to all of this is not a review of the decisions I’ve made in my life, but to state that I am in love with my wife. I love to be around and with her. Yes, we don’t always agree. Last night she told me I had no fences to sit on and if was sitting on a fence it was one of my own construction way off to the side of everyone else’s fence. I am a passionate person. And I passionately love her. On top of that, I passionately love what she does for me. As a result, it should surprise no one that my wife is my highest priority and my greatest joy.
John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West
Real Heroes Fly
I love you, too. More than you know. (Ah, mushy)