Sometimes you just can't put gratefulness into words. Money is tight. I know it is for a lot of us. I know my story is not unique.
New Mortgage.
My Husband lost his job.
I had to turn down a great opportunity to be responsible.
My husband is still looking for work.
We are 3,000 miles from home.
The time line is running out.
The bills are still coming.
So, to say that I have been praying, learning a lot about patience, and feeling like a nervous wreck most days- is the truth. I keep on being told that I am being tested. We are being tested. Our faith is being put through the blender. I have to admit, I am not a good test taker.
In my household, this weeks pay period is the first one where we will feel the absence of our normal income. This is the time that I was hoping we would be out of the woods, and that there would a new job title for my man and he would have brand spanking new business cards in his wallet. But.....nope.
Isn't prayer supposed to work like a vending machine? You ask for something and God gives it to you right? Not exactly. Not at all.
So what's a girl to do?
Still pray.
Pray more.
And once again, I believe that God is provisional. I believe he hears.
The funny thing about answered prayer is that it hardly ever looks exactly like you want it to- it just gives you exactly what need. Cliche? Yup. Do I love that most cliche's are true? Yup.
This very morning, my husband got a large sum of money unexpectedly from an old employer. And when I say large sum...two mortgages worth of funds. The exact amount of money that we need to keep us afloat and keep our house in this unsteady and unpredictable time.
Naysayers, may say, well the money was there all along....yes it was.
They may also say, well good things happen sometimes...that's true, but the timing was so God-like. Down to the wire.
God provided. Prayer worked. And I am yet again in a place of awe.
We are not where I want us to be yet, we are still facing giants- my husband didn't get the job that I was hoping he would. I am still not fully secure, like I love being.
But this trail of bread crumbs that we are following, while laced with lessons, blessings, and bickering- is leading us to a place of trust. And for that I am thankful.
Do you ever get the feeling that despite the pseudo-personal connection that the internet provides through the virtual chloroplast of Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter, that we are in some ways fanning the flame of fabricated interconnection?
It's like the witness protection program, we can all hide behind cute profile names and witty banter, while not really having to invest in people personally. Don't misunderstand- I love hiding behind different persona's and snooping around these online yearbooks, it's like spying with a backstage pass. Besides how else would I have known that the paste-eater in my third grade class would turn out to be my mom's veterinarian- let's hope that glue wasn't a gateway drug to start sniffing Lassie's formaldehyde.
I guess my point is, while we can assuage our conscious by saying that we commented on so-and-so's profile- does it actually qualify as a substitute for a flesh and blood phone call or a face-to-face over coffee?
I can't help but notice that my generation is privacy obsessed. For instance, if I were to pick up the phone and call someone, is that crossing some kind of boundary? To me, sometimes it seems invasive. How "friendly" do you have to be with someone to graduate from online to real life? Has virtual reality made the art of conversation nothing more than a "lazy man's letter"- a series of back and forth, tête-à-tête where we no longer stand on our own two feet but we rely on the font-friendly social crutch of texts and one liners?
For me, it's becoming a wheelchair! I love words, I am much better at commenting and writing letters than talking on the phone. Phone's make me nervous, and I am somewhat of a fast talker- I am constantly getting caught in that "talking-over-you-talking-over-me" thing- it's exhausting.
Which leads me to this: If I add up all of my "friends" online I have a total of 1,773. Whaaaaaa?? And yet when I look through my phone I have a total of 40 contacts. Granted, I don't want to have over 1700 numbers in my phone, but the fact of the matter is this: internet friends are somewhat like high school friends. You all hang out at the same place but when it comes to showing up for an event that you post, or reading your blog, or commenting your status, it's just too big of a school for everyone to care.
Egocentricity is king these days, so I decided to run a little experiment with my online clout. Aside from my fellow bloggers, who are all so diligent at reading each others blogs and encouraging each other to keep on being creative I wanted to recruit all of my "friends" online to see what kind of turn out I could get for my marriage blog/survey.
The jury is in... a total of 11 people voted. And that's just about right. If you can get 11 people to take a minute out of their day to read your sporadic, typo-ridden, "look at me, look at me!" ramblings, I'd say that's pretty good.
Here's the people's vote: Marrying your Best Friend is the way to go by 64%. My advice is this: If you are going to marry your best "friend" make sure you get a real proposal, and not via text or an online "gift" digital ring in your inbox- which may be the next wave of humanistic abandonment, God forbid.
I hate to say this, but "virtual" friendship is just what the dictionary says it is: "noting an image formed by the apparent convergence of rays geometrically, but not actually, prolonged, as the image formed by a mirror (opposed to real)." Not real. Hmmm...
So call someone today, hug someone, or write a good old fashioned letter. Technology is great, but investing in those REAL friendships, much better.
I wouldn't call my self a relationship guru, however I may say that I am a fairly experienced dater. Even with this prowess I possess, thanks to multiple beaus in high school, long term relationships in college and yes, a few flings with the resident "bad boy", have led me to question what type is the best type?
First of all, as a married woman you may be thinking how scandalous it is to even pose such a question? But as a married woman I feel like I am the best person to ask such a question, since I am "on the other side of that relationship finish line". And besides I've already made my choice, so my pithy observations become somewhat benign. I've got some perspective, however narrow in scope.
Here's the deal, a friend of mine said something to me that struck a resounding chord, and I felt compelled to jot down a few thoughts on the topic just to get the reverberation out of my head.
My friend is a happily married mid-twenties professional with an attractive young wife, and he said, "You know, I think my wife and I may be too good of friends to have good sex."
Hold the phone!
Don't people say that you should marry your best friend? And don't people seem to think that just marrying for sex is a recipe for disaster? And if marrying your best friend makes sex something like hugging a teddy bear while eating ice cream from the carton, then maybe that isn't the quickest way to heat up the sheets. So what's a girl or guy to do, and who are we really supposed to be looking for? The real question may be how compatible is compatibility in marriage?
I've composed a few different scenarios for pure entertainment value. My own I guess. Please vote!
Who would you rather marry?
Scenario 1) Your Best Friend.
So I know I already touched on this a little bit, but just because some jack-o said that marrying his best friend has made sex a little too friendly, doesn't mean that looking for the qualities of a BFF in your future husband is such a bad thing. If you do the math, the time spent in the bedroom in comparison to the time spent watching movies, talking, cooking, laughing, running, sleeping, working, eating, and hanging is fractional at best. So you get all the benefits of living with your best friend, but you sometimes wonder if farting and peeing in front of each other may be just a tad too close for comfort.
Scenario 2) Your Physical Fantasy
So we all know what this type entails. He is the steamy, ultra-sexy guy of your dreams- physically. There is only one problem, you are the doormat and he is the studded football cleats. This is not to say that you can not be attracted to the right type for you. But if we are honest, our utmost physical fantasy doesn't seem to include the nice, humble guy who is willing to take out the trash and rub your feet while he shoots spreads for Gucci in Milan on weekends. This physical fantasy is the guy that takes more time getting ready than you do, and likes to pepper you will comments such as, "Are you really going to wear that?" and "Did you go to the gym today?" But some of us dig the distant moody type and besides, how's the sex? Fughet about it!
Scenario 3) The Safe Bet
This guy is kind, gentle and well educated, so who cares if he wears a few sweater vests every now and then? He makes a great living, adores you, and is always appropriate in social situations. No guesswork with this guy- he has his whole life planned out and is as secure as The Pentagon. He likes the symphony, culture, museums and The History Channel, and even plays Celine Dion over dinner without you having to ask. What more could a girl ask for? Who cares if you aren't attracted to him in the least? Who cares if his gentility has got you screaming for one fight? Just one! Country clubbing and expensive cars and wine, perfect. Good thing he doesn't know about your girls weekend in Vegas? Tequila shots are so not blue blood.
Scenario 4) Marriage? What is That?
It's no secret that less and less people are getting married, and more and more people are waiting longer to do so. Perhaps the staggering divorce rates that have plagued over half of the population are making us a little gun shy. Completely understandable. Or perhaps we are waiting for the perfect blend of fantasy and friendship to walk into our lives- idealism, gotta love it! Having our own space and our own identities apart from a wedding ring is absolutely desirable, even as a married woman I envy the freedom that single women have, but we all want to share our lives with someone- perhaps your cat Mabel is the companion you are looking for.
Of course this blog is in jest, but the lifelong search for our counterpoints or the lifelong commitment to stick with the one we chose, is the ultimate line in the sand. Our relationships can very much so dictate our worth, our sense of identity, and determine the paths in which we take in finding our place in this world. Who you choose to spend your life with is the most important decision you will make outside of choosing a career, a religion, or if you have kids or not.
Weigh in your thoughts on the survey, and remember that compatibility may just be a coping mechanism. Perhaps we are all odd-shaped jigsaw pieces that don't have any perfect matching piece. That's what makes love all the more interesting.
Last night, my best friend, whom I have known since I was nine years old got engaged.
As we both giggled over the phone and I ran around the room asking about what the ring looked like and how it happened, it dawned on me that I felt like I was back to the tender, naive age of nine. And it was a welcomed altruism. One that took me by surprise.
But honestly, how could I avoid reverting back to the land of fairy tales and Prince Charmings? As a child, I had been conditioned, or more accurately "targeted" by toy campaigns from heartless corporate big-wigs, to view love as such?...hence this absolutely heinous commercial about this year's hot toy, which is called (finger in throat) Diamond Castle Glimmer Horse, which I linked to this blog for your entertainment.
This pink, cupcake-eating, heart-string pulling, genderless horse is a perfect example of the kind of things I fell prey to when I was a little girl. Aside from it's creepy misalignment with reality in general, (it was a harsh blow when I discovered unicorns were a farse, it hit me harder than the Santa hoax), it also plays a fiendish role in distorting what marriage is in the minds of pliable little "daddy's princesses".
And let me tell you from experience, there ain't no pink horse that flies you to a diamond castle every night after you clock out of your nine-to-five job, tired and disenchanted, having to face a fridge full of groceries that you don't want to make and a load of unfolded laundry wrinkling it's way to ninety years old in the dryer.
Granted, I am not a sage. I am a little nub on the tree of long lasting marriages. I will be celebrating my 5th Christmas with my husband but only our second married one. I know I have loads to learn. Perhaps one of the biggest things I had to learn is this: while I was force fed diamond encrusted dreams through an IV loaded with saccharine cartoons and plastic play-things, it came into focus that normalcy is so much more comforting than the fallacy of fairy tales.
I am happy for my best friend and her husband-to-be. Not because I think her beach wedding will be spectacular, or because she deserves the perfect ending to her singledom buttoned off by the sparkle of a diamond ring. Its because she will now be joining the ranks of women who believed in love, and now get to find out what the whole thing is really about.
Marriage for me, has enlightened, tested, refined, matured, and held me in so many ways. Watching TV with my best friend (that's my boy) in pajamas eating salsa and chips for dinner for the third night in a row. It's a far cry from suppers in the dining hall, with roasted boar and candied pecans but man, is it so much better!
I do not live in a castle, I do not ride a flying horse to work. I did not marry prince charming, I do not sing to animals, and even if I did they wouldn't understand me (Snow White is a damn liar). So when I look down at my ring I see a testament of promise, that no matter what happens...a true reflection of human frailty and acceptance will be found.
So my dearest friend, welcome to "for better or for worse"- the stuff that real life is made of.
An old soul of sorts, my imagination is the lifeline that connects me to the efflorescence of the written word, the messy palette of a painting yet to be, and the strum of a chord yet sung to. Obsessed with all things beautiful: prose and opinion, freedom and surrender, curiosity and wisdom- I am happy to be in a place in my life where I have never let my inner artist wither. Books, photos, paintings, movies, articles, animals, children, a great glass of wine, a fine cooked meal ~anything that inspires others to create is of immense worth.
