it's the little kisses

I almost rolled my eyes. 

Not at the mentor who was counseling me with marital wisdom, but at the actual advice.


And when he comes home, I stop what I'm doing and I go give him a hug and a kiss.

I was twenty-two, newly married, and I had read the books, had done the counseling and the courses and had been at this thing for ten eleven months.

Seriously.

I needed to be told to greet my husband when he came home?

We were pro's. We had this thing down. We could start our own counseling practice, we were so freakin' awesome at being married.

And then familiarity set in. The newness wore off. Actual, salaried, you-could-get-fired-if-you-don't-take-this-seriously kinds of jobs, with the stress they generated, came into play.

Oh, and kids.

Shouldn't forget we had kids.

So, seven anniversaries, two pregnancies, five moves, eleven hairstyles, six cars, seventy, eighty, a hundred {?} fights, and a hundred and one make-up's after that conversation, her words still haunt me.

They catch me, soapy hands in sink, when I hear the door open and I think,

           Carter will play with him. Just let me finish loading the dishwasher. 

They catch me, tired body on sofa, baby in arms, and I justify, 
        
           He'll walk around the corner any minute now.

They catch me, evening routine already in full swing, and I reason that

          I can just smile now and kiss his cheek in a minute.

But I'm wrong about that. About the just-let-me-get-this-done-first business. My husband is my love. He's the one I chose to build my future, my family, with. He's the man I respect the most, the only person on earth with whom I am to work out the weighty mystery of marital covenant.

He's more than a room-mate, more than a break from my kids, more than an extra set of hands to help me get my stuff done.

He is my husband, and love is my first charge.  

My mentor was right. And her tidbit of marital advice was much harder than I expected.

It's the get-up-and-greet-him hug when he comes home, it's the {every night} goodnight kiss, it's the saying I Love You before hanging up the phone.

It's the little gestures in the hello's and goodbye's of life that keep us kind, that keep us closer to the honor and deference and priority that our spouses should have. They tell us that we are not as busy as we think we are, that our agendas can rest a minute, that simple celebration is more important than uninterrupted task.

It's not complicated, it's not sexy, but it sure requires me to lay myself aside for a moment. Who knew, after all these years, my mentor's words would ring true? Who knew I'd be preachin' that

it's the little kisses.

miss you

Driving down the road today, two boys in tow, a warm breeze hit my face and took me, for just a moment, to times less complicated.

The Eagles rock out something about girls and California as we drive my beloved PCH. It stretches before us for miles and miles, salty wind runs through strands of wannabe blonde hair and we, we sit side by side with much to say and nothing at all.

We were driving to Santa Barbara. A wine tour through the Santa Inez Valley and dinners at mom and pop restaurants, bicycle rides on the beach and cigar walks on the sand, comfy pillows and alarms unplugged  awaited us, but the road is what I miss.

I miss the lack of agenda. The lack of deadlines (if not for a few days), the lack of watch-checking and babysitter-fee-calculating. I miss getting away to dream. To love. To be. Without the pressure of trying to catch up on words and sleep. I miss the world that was ours alone, the selfish love we indulged in for years before God gave us our babies. 

I love my boys, my baby and my son-turned-pirate, and I eat and breathe and live and sleep their needs, their wants, their joys and sorrows. My life is richer and fuller than ever before because they're here and because I'm their mother.

But with the catch of the warm breeze today, with the catch of his eye this morning, I'm left wanting more of us. Just us.

I can be a brat

Grace is when your husband is making a spice mix for the fajitas and you tell him he should add cumin and he says he doesn't like cumin and you make him smell the opened jar and he makes a face and then you walk over to his spice mix and deliberately add cumin in an act of culinary stubbornness and general obnoxiousness and he stares at you in shocked disbelief, composes himself and then he tells you to go for a run, really, I think you'll be happier if you do, and I got dinner and Carter's fine and I love you.

musings and mush, if you dare to read

Marriage changes you.

And, it's not the kind of change that happens overnight, like the last name or the new apartment.

The kind of change I'm thinking of is deeper, reaching back into the recesses of your soul and then extending forward through your personality.

It's the vocabulary changes-- "four-ish" no longer means "sometime during the hour of four o'clock." It now refers to the exact window of "3:50-4:10." It's the dietary changes-- coming to learn that you love cheesy grits with bacon, that you never really liked alfalfa sprouts, and that your mom-in-law's mac-n-cheese really does taste better.

There are political changes--the liberal Californian has learned what constitutes constructive conversation with the in-laws and what is simply downright offensive to discuss. And there are recreation changes--football is no longer just for napping, but represents an entire culture I've recently come to appreciate.

I used to fear that change for me in marriage meant losing myself. 

When I thought about change, I didn't fear losing my love for hummus or NPR; I feared losing my independent spirit, my individual identity and the spunk to hold one's ground, even to a guy whose IQ ranks much higher than hers.

Seven-ish years later, my husband has not allowed any of those real fears to be realized. When we were only married for 11 months, it was he who encouraged me to take off to Mexico to teach an English class to Mayans...for 5 weeks. He's the one who's researched opportunities for my to explore my dreams, who's bought me books on topics only I could care about, and who asks questions-- those probing kinds of questions that stick with you for weeks and push you to self-truths you wouldn't discover alone.

As a result, I've settled a bit. I don't feel so defensive over my identity anymore, realizing that the person I'm becoming is better than the person I'd be on my own. I don't always need to be understood and I don't always need to be right. In the security of my husband's love, I've traded the posture of independence for a mutual partnership and it's so much more gratifying.

All this to say, it's night number 6 that Neal's been away

and I miss him.