Two

Two years we’ve been married now. Today marks that anniversary.

We got engaged on December 22, 2008. The idea of our lives together then versus now? It looks NOTHING like what it did in my head that blustery night The Candyman got down on one knee on the banks of Cape Fear. In fact, I can’t say for sure exactly what was in my head at all. The only thing The Candyman and I really remember is feeling strange. Very, very strange. And we couldn’t sleep. And there was this very uncomfortable, foreign object on my left hand.

Now the only time I notice my rings is when I’ve left them on while making meat loaf and I get ground turkey all smooshed up inside them. Nice, right?

The strangeness rears its head every now and again. At odd times, like when we’re watching Jeopardy or brushing our teeth, either I or The Candyman will suddenly blurt out “We got married!” or “You’re my WIFE/HUSBAND!” and the other will respond in kind. Some days we still can’t believe it.

Right now I’m trying to think of some awesome, sage advice I can give on marriage, after two whole years.

I got nothing. Seriously. Nothing specific is coming through my head and to my fingers. At all. These words here? They’re just filler.

I can say this: lately, we’ve been watching “Friday Night Lights” on Netflix streaming thanks to a recommendation from my Nashville friends Hal and Kim. Has anyone ever seen this show? Its actually really good. I thought it was a movie with James Vanderbeek (turns out there is a movie, but with Billy Bob Thorton. Vanderbeek was in Varsity Blues.). Anyway, we’re watching the episodes back to back and both The Candyman and I recognize a LOT of similarities in the way we operate as a couple compared to the Friday Night Lights couple, Tami and Eric. We laugh together because they fight the same way we do: he gets huffy, intensely stares and cave-man like, pounds his chest on what will be and what will not be. I get obstinate, head-strong and filled with a feministic rage that smacks of condescending logic. And my voice goes up about 6 octaves in the process. It can through air and eardrums like one of the Henckels knives we got for a wedding present.

But they always come back together and reach a truce, as do me and The Candyman. Sometimes it takes all of 30 seconds for this to happen. Other times, it takes 30 minutes. Sometimes a day or two, but we eventually get there, back to a place of love.

---------------

So I was online, looking at clips of Tami and Eric to put up here on the blog and The Candyman comes downstairs and sees what I’m doing and says, “Are you looking for clips of Eric and Tami fighting to celebrate our anniversary on the blog?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

“I know you so well.”

“Harrumph.”

---------------

So now that I’ve had some time to think over the super-cheesy clips on YouTube (people LOVE them some Eric and Tami!), I’ve come to a place where I think I can find some words about marriage, at least when it comes to us:

• Marriage is hard work. Totally worth it.
• We fight over the same things we always did (money, chores), but the fights are less intense and easier to deal with because we practice at managing our emotions. 
• Our dynamic has changed – he’s now the bread winner and I’m depending on him.It’s a massive undertaking, this shift. I’m sure it’s only the first in many shifts we’ll have in our life together. Managing through them is what it’s all about, right? The best part is knowing that whatever struggle we encounter, we get to do it with the person we love best in the whole, wide world.
• The sex is better.
• “Forsaking all others” means a lot more to me now than it did when I made those particular vows. The Candyman comes first. Always.
• Did I mention the sex was better?

And yes, I’m still going to post the super-cheese Tami and Eric¹ video. I don’t care who makes fun of me.

Happy Anniversary, Shuggah! I love you!

¹Just for the record, I realize that they are not a real couple.

Forgive Them Their Trespasses

There’s going to be a lot of remembering today, I know. For someone as sentimental as I am, remembering is my pass time, but not this. I don’t like to remember this.

I don’t mind remembering when I first heard about the plane crashing into the tower. I thought it was probably a little Cessna, an inexperienced pilot in a POS plane. I heard the news on the radio on my way to work. I hoped not many were hurt.

But the day went on and the terror continued. We heard about plane #2 and then the Pentagon. I had friends and friends with family who worked at the Pentagon and I could NOT get through. This was all before Facebook and Twitter (I know, hard to image that world, right?) and news didn’t travel as fast. Suffice to say it was terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible.

I was 31 and single. It was probably one of the worst times in my life for it too. All the travel and experiences and all that I had done up until that point felt moot because I was alone and sad, with family so far away (I lived in Chicago at the time). I had no one to rally with. No one to be comforted by or to comfort in return. 9.11 was an eye opener in that regard.

Three months after 9.11 I went to New York and to Ground Zero. It was still an enormous mess, all the remembrances and “Have You Seen?” bulletins were still posted all over the area. Roads were still blocked. Subway stops inoperable. It was literally a war zone.

I stood in line with a friend and a co-worker to go stand on the platform – then, a hastily built wood thing  where you stood and looked at an enormous hole filled with cranes and bulldozers.

Nearby Ground Zero is St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel, which was miraculously unharmed in the 9.11 event. It was home base for many of the firefighters and policemen working Ground Zero. We had a chance to thank several dust covered and clearly exhausted men on their way in for a break.

The street in front of the chapel was busy, loud – just like any New York sidewalk. However, when you started walking down to the platform, it got eerily quiet. As we were waiting in line, I kept hearing this small, tinkling sound like a wind chime.  I leaned over to Barb and asked her if she heard it too. She did, yet we couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. The sound, so very light and airy, almost whimsical, seemed incredibly out of place – like the ringing of a cell phone at a funeral.

I finally found the source of the sound and it was coming from a tree in the small graveyard of St. Paul’s chapel. It was a wind chime – of sorts.  It was a set of office blinds. You know the thin aluminum ones they put in office buildings? Clearly, the blinds had been blown out of some window and were a dust-covered gray, tangled ball, high at the top of this tree. When the wind would blow, the ball would gently sway up and out and then back down on itself creating the small, high sound.

That day it was those window blinds that broke me down. Whose window did those blinds come from? What kind of force was it that crumbled and curled them and then hurled them a block away into this tree?

Other days it was the thought that there are people out there in this world who hate our country so much that they’d kill thousands of completely innocent people to make a point. I’m still not sure what that point is.

Most days it was the barrage of images. The people jumping from the towers. The dead being pulled from the rubble. The families stricken with grief.

What I also remember are the churches FILLED with people, most who hadn’t seen the inside of a church in a long time, myself included. I remember the sense of community too. We were all very much aware of our neighbors, the person next to us in traffic, the stranger on the street. What has happened to that feeling, that bond of country and community? We need it back, in a big, bad way.

We need to come together and stop pointing fingers and laying blame. The GOP candidates are already baring teeth and sharpening claws, fighting over unemployment percentages and who spent more money where.

Enough already. I know that it is impossible to recreate the community spirit the came after 9.11. Too much has happened. Too much is at stake right now. But in honor of 9.11 I know that I will do my best to remember and honor the people who were killed in this terrible tragedy. I will forgive trespasses, as the prayer goes.

The Candyman Was Right.

So my friend Michele called me on the day I wrote my whining post about how hard every thing is. I thought for a second she’d read it and called to check in with me (as several of my Blog People did, which I so appreciate). Alas, I know she doesn’t read the blog so knew that wasn’t it. (P.S. I find it sort of strange that my very closest friends rarely read my blog though I don’t speak to them on the regular. Anyone else got this going on?)

Then I remembered that I’d called her over the weekend while The Candyman and I were fighting. I wasn’t going to talk to her about the fight because I just don’t do that. Inviting anyone other than The Candyman into any part of my marriage isn’t something I do. However, I did want  to talk about nonsensical girl-things to get my mind off of the fight while I was getting myself a revenge-pedicure (I’ll show HIM! I’m going to step out of my own self-imposed moratorium on pedicures and get one. That will totally show him. Humph!).

Now Michele is a smart cookie. Really smart. I have no idea what she does, but it’s like behavioral management type shit. She used to work for this company where she traveled the US and coached prison wardens on management styles and such. And she’d go to the prisons. I can’t ever imagine this because Michele is the girliest of girls and trying to plop her into a prison setting, pretty much telling wardens what to do is not something I can see in my mind’s eye. Anyway, she has this ability to listen to what someone says about who they are or what they are struggling with and then BLAMMO! she sees straight through to the bullshit and totally calls you on it. It can be unnerving sometimes.

So I told her about how I think I am the suck and unaccomplished and basically feel like a big, fat, stupid cow munching away on my cud all the live long day. She asked me a few questions about how I spend my days, am I exercising (not enough), what kind of groups am I involved it, etc. Really basic, almost job interview types of questions. And then BLAMMO! she says, “Louise, you need to take more time for yourself. You need to do things for you. You need to take this time and enjoy it. You may not ever have it again.”

There are all sorts of feelings of guilt associated with chilling the hell out on the couch all the live long day, or for even an hour or two. That’s just not me. There’s guilt associated with not bringing home the bacon like I once did, versus frying up The Candyman’s turkey bacon like I do now. And The Candyman knows I’ve been infusing his dishes with resentment, a la Like Water for Chocolate style. That’s just rude of me.

But the point of this post is that The Candyman has been saying the exact same shit to me for the last nine months. “Take more time for yourself, honey” he says, and “Why don’t you skip the blog post today?” or “You should look at this time as a once in a lifetime opportunity.” I totally ignore him and consider him a moron. Then other people, including my really smart friend Michele, start saying the same thing and suddenly I start listening.

Why do we do that?

This scenario has happened in the reverse too. I can’t remember the exact issue, but there had been something I was hammering The Candyman over and he simply would NOT listen to me. It was infuriating. Then we went to one of our pre-marital counseling sessions and our therapist said what I’d been saying to him, like exactly and suddenly he’s all, “Oh, I get it!” and I wanted to clobber him over the head with my shoe. Repeatedly.

So why does that happen? Why do we not hear the people who are closest to us? Why does it take outside counsel for us to hear things our partners tell us all the damn time? I mean, our wives and husbands are the people who committed themselves to us: to have and to hold, till death and all that. And are our partners trying to sabotage us? Make us unhappy? Are the trying to give us false hope and fill our minds with bullshit rhetoric? Well, from a simple strategy position, that would be dumb. There’s a lot of wisdom in that horrid saying, “Happy wife, happy life.” Unless I married a complete asshole, there’s no reason why The Candyman would intentionally do anything that wasn’t in my/his/our best interests. And I didn’t marry an asshole. I married the sweet Candyman. He’s got my best interests at heart, yet I fail to see that or truly listen to what I’m hearing from him.

This doesn’t mean that I’ll be taking every damn thing that comes out of his mouth as gospel. Not my style. However, I do think I need to be a better listener. I hear him all the time, I just don’t internalize what he’s saying unless I am super-focused. Most of the time, I am decidedly unfocused because I’m too damn busy worrying about all the shit I’m not, my failures and lack of current accomplishments. This is where I need to practice some basic listening skills. However, it’s hard to push aside the heavy, musty, dirty curtain of your own self-doubt and see that there is an  audience filled with your biggest fans, The Candyman sitting in the center seat of the front row.

The Candyman, basking in the glow of my epiphany,  suggested I write a post about how he was right about all this stuff. So I am. And just to make him feel really good, I’ll admit this too: we totally should have gotten a gas mower. The electric one blows.

{Sponsored Post!} On-Line Marriage Preparation Course

He doesn’t look over 4000 weddings old, but he is! Who might I be referring to? That would be the Tennessee based non-denominational minister Ralph Griggs! When I asked him how many weddings he’s officiated, he said he stopped counting a few years ago, and it was over 4000 then! Can you IMAGINE the stuff he’s seen? My goodness!

Via

A few personal words about Ralph, though this is a sponsored post. Ralph was our officiant and he’s punctual, he’s nice, he’s professional and he’s good. Really good. We could not have been happier, particularly since The Candyman and I didn’t have our own church in Nashville. And the thing is, he’s just a super-nice guy. There, my 2 cents on that.

But on to the good stuff! One of the great things about Ralph is his on-line marriage preparation course. I know this sounds, er, lame – but marriage prep is crucial. Marriage takes WORK! Regardless of how easy your relationship is right now, it might not always stay that way, particularly when a crisis rears it’s ugly head. And crises can happen, to both good and bad people. It’s best to know how you and your partner will act in difficult times.

Now when The Candyman and I met with Ralph, we were already in premarital counseling. We knew we had some rough areas of communication that definitely needed smoothing over and we nipped that sucker in the bud. However, that was a specific issue that we needed to work on. Ralph’s course asks questions that took us in all sorts of different directions. One of my favorite questions was, “If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it?” It may seem like a pipe dream type of question, but it takes you through each person’s priorities. We answered separately and then shared our answers afterwards. It was surprising (and a relief) to know that we would do EXACTLY the same thing. What’s interesting, is that particular question really gave us insight into our relationship because one of the things we fought about was money (sometimes still do). However, knowing that the core, the things that we see as important, were the same now make those money-talks a lot easier.

Here are some additional things that the on-line marriage preparation course can do for you: 

• Prevent unhappy surprises in your marriage. You don’t want to get into your marriage and say to your significant other, “I had no idea you thought that!” You should kinda know all the important stuff up front! It sounds simple, but isn’t always.
• Build confidence in your relationship strengths and explore new areas. Premarital preparation made us feel more confident about our decision to marry. Period.
• Get a heads-up on tricky relationship issues, and have some compromises worked out already. This was crucial for me and The Candyman and was well worth the time investment.
• Begin marriage with the knowledge that your mate cares enough about the relationship to put some effort into making it grow. Amen.
• It’s fun. I’m not blowing smoke here. When done right, premarital preparation is fun. It just makes you feel really good about your partner.

Some other benefits?

• It’s the marriage course guys love. For real. The Candyman would not lie about something like this.
• It’s the course anyone can do at home! You don’t have to find a therapist. You don’t have to schedule and drive somewhere. You don’t have to pay a $50 co-pay or more if you aren’t covered by insurance. You don’t have to tell private stuff to a stranger.
• Yo, Tennessee couples, save $60! Did you know that if you partake in premarital prep you can save $60 on your marriage license?

You don’t have to live in Tennessee and you don’t have to have Ralph as your officiant to take part in the on-line marriage preparation course. You can already be married too! It's never too late to dig a little deeper with your partner, particularly when it's fun.

So go check it out and come back here an let me know what you think. How do you feel about pre-marriage prep?

Etch-a-Sketch Poetry

My dad doesn’t read my blog. My mom does. You’ve probably seen comments from her. She’s very supportive of all that I do. Not that my dad isn’t, he just doesn’t get very involved in the girly things. He can’t stand when me, or my mom or heaven forbid, me, my mom, her sisters and their daughters are all in the same room doing what he calls “Tiny Muscle Movements.” That’s when we’re all sitting around knitting, crocheting, needlepointing – whatever, and gabbing until our hearts content. It drives him mad. And that’s OK, because he spends an extraordinary amount of time in the garage doing all sorts of “man projects.” The Candyman and I are trying to convince him to set up a video camera in the garage to record his crazy shit. Recently, he brought me into the garage to show me the extra storage platform he built “for my mother.” It was this whole thing with a pulley system and ropes and knots and wood and it really was kind of amazing. But I stopped him mid-description of the contraption and said, “You built this for Mom?” Bullshit. You got to use all sorts of tools to do this. I see nylon rope with heat finished ends. I see a pulley system. You built this for you.” I got a slight smile and light shove and he continued to describe the system until I wandered away uninterested, as he continued to talk for the next hour or so, most likely to his tools.

My dad wasn’t always around a lot. It’s not because my parents split or that they had a troubled marriage or anything like that. He just worked. All. The. Time. His military career took him away for months. He didn’t make it to all the plays and recitals. He missed a lot of stuff. And he was also kind of a scary dad at times. He didn’t tolerate goofing around, dinner plates that weren’t spotless, sassing of any kind to any person nor poor school performance. We likened him often to Robert Duvall’s character in The Great Santini (a side note: this film was shot in Beaufort, South Carolina, when we lived there. My dad is one of the fighter pilot’s flying the F4 jets in the movie’s flying scenes. We can also point out old neighbors/pilots in other scenes of the movie!).

In these later years, the old dude has chilled the fuck out considerably. He’s still away from home a lot, riding his motorcycle all over Hell’s half acre. In fact, next month he’s going to Switzerland to ride the Swiss Alps. On a motorcycle. The dynamic between us has changed over the years. It becomes more and more apparent how alike we are. When I was young, people used to tell me I was the spitting image of my mother. Now, more people comment on how much I look like my dad. When I get indignant about something with The Candyman, he says, “OK, Gus! Whatever you say!” The Candyman likes to think this an insult. I do not.

Though my dad wasn’t always around, he did teach me a few things:

He taught me how to laugh at an early age.

He taught me how to water ski. This is me, circa 1978, having jumped the wake for the first time!

He was there for the big stuff, like when I gradumutated from Indiana University.

Summers in the low country made for lots of fun.

I’m sure my mother will cringe at this, but he taught me that the occasional Etch-a-Sketch drunken poetry about a cow is completely acceptable. This is the one time in my life where I’ve seen my dad completely hammered. In fact, there were a few of us who happened to be in the same alcohol-filled boat on this day. Let’s just say it was at the beach, it was raining and there was a one year old SCREAMING ALL DAY. There was no escape, so we hit the booze early and didn’t stop.

He taught me to be myself and by example, to stand up for what I believe in. He taught me to have a code in which to live by.

He also taught me how to curse, but not on purpose.

When I was 18, we lived for a moment in Grand Prairie, Texas, where there was an amazing water park. We went there together, just he and I. We went on every slide, jumped off of every ledge and got dunked in every pool. Towards the end of the day, we stood looking up at the three-story slide we had yet to ride. My dad loves to tell the tale of how I told him we HAD to ride it, “Because it’s the rule. You have to ride every ride in the park.”

I think he’s taken that “rule” to heart. There isn’t a place in the world he’s wanted to go to that he hasn’t been to. He has hundreds of friends, most who’d do anything for him simply because they know he’d reciprocate in a heartbeat. He’s been married to my mom for 46 years. He’s seen and experienced more of the world and the people he encounters than I can ever dream of (he takes pictures of random waitresses and bartenders on his motorcycle trips, deeming each one, “the nicest server I’ve ever had!).

He’s 69 and is riding every ride in the park.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad.