On my milestone days
I am 35 today. Yesterday, I was 34. But yesterday carried its own milestone. Yesterday I celebrated ten years of marriage. So, I'm sitting here thinking about life, my age, the times, and what it means to have a decade of marriage under my belt.
When I got married, I was pretty naive. Everything fit into neat little packages.. Except for him. He broke open my file system, dug down into the root directory and rewrote the base code. All the information is still there, still valid, but with R's input, I saw it all in a very different manner. There's a book out there that talks about one gender thinking like waffles, and the other like sphaghetti, meaning that one group compartmentalizes everything and the other connects things in such a random manner it almost doesn't make any sense at all. I'm not so sure it goes along gender lines. I was the waffle and R poured spaghetti all over my compartmentalized ideas, connecting things in a way I've never considered before. That's one of the reasons I fell hard. That, and some seriously amazing chicken fajitas.
I was raised to believe in the bullet points. The exact nature of the bullet points changed almost monthly at times, dependent on the situation and the information I'd gotten that made sense. I was willing to rewrite them over and over again as required by having a Lutheran and Methodist as parents, going to an A/G church, a Baptist school, having a Seventh-Day Adventist friend, going to a Presbyterian church for two services a year, marrying a Methodist, and learning from YWAM (among other things). I'm learning, though, that it's not the right format for basic information. I've gone from building a building with the gold bricks of knowlege I've been given to building a bridge, to building a trampoline. And yes, those very images were involved. It's not about walling myself in, or even trying to cross over something. It's become more about connections to people. Relationships. Friendships. Love and community. Koinonia.
I was raised with the sword of Damocles over my head. Doom was everpresent. I was certain I'd escaped one form of 'doom' by taking the Master's hand and letting Him guide me toward Himself. I still am. The nature of my understanding of that 'Doom' has changed, though. However, I felt the sword from another couple of sources as well. If you know me well enough, or when I was younger, you can probably piece together what they may be. I'm finding out that though the information I had may have been correct, I can't live with the frayed string holding the sword above my head. And I shouldn't. Things will fall apart. Yes. Things are not wonderful, things can get worse in the beat of a heart. I'm not going to live like it's already happened, though. I can take the information, apply it to a situation, and make decisions that are positive in nature rather than reactive and negative based.
I have two children. My elder child is just eight, and he's a bundle of nervous, joyful energy. Just a few minutes ago, that energy was directed at making me laugh by putting two strawberries in his mouth like vampire fangs. It worked. He is a smart child, seeming to have my linear thought and his father's scholastic challenges. He loves math, needing to see how the numbers work like puzzle pieces before understanding how to reshape them himself. My younger child is five and a half. She's a (mostly) demure, quiet soul with my silliness and a touch of her father's morbid humor. She likes to twist words, making me laugh with the connections that she makes. She can twist the "spaghetti" around pretty well, and come up with some very unique ideas. Both children want to go into game design. If they do, I could see Thing One designing the actual mechanics of the game, and Thing Two helping to flesh out the storyline and the UI. But yknow. That's from far far away.
There were times in my life I was sure I would have a whole houseful of children, and other times I despaired of ever having any. I'm glad to have the two I have. From them, I've learned that time is precious, learning to speak another "love language" is hard but worth it, and that nothing else matters when those people you are solely responsible for are crying. There are things you'll do to cheer up your child that you probably wouldn't do in any other situation. Faces you'll make, songs you promised never to sing again... things like that. But it's worth it to see their smiles and know they love you, trust you, and understand you. They've been aware of the family Darmok for years, and speak it fluently. Which can be amusing and terrifying at turns.
I have changed a lot in 35 years. I have become a wife and mother. I have been to Africa and Europe. I have become Episcopalian and probably will stay that way for quite awhile if not for the rest of my life. I have made friends. I have written, read and sung. I have smiled, cried, laughed, screamed, hurt, ... I have lived. Not enough, of course. There is still much to do. But 35 years of life and 10 years of marriage seems like a good point at which I should stop, say "Oh!", and think a little about who I am now.
And stick a few rocks in the river nearby so I won't forget.
When I got married, I was pretty naive. Everything fit into neat little packages.. Except for him. He broke open my file system, dug down into the root directory and rewrote the base code. All the information is still there, still valid, but with R's input, I saw it all in a very different manner. There's a book out there that talks about one gender thinking like waffles, and the other like sphaghetti, meaning that one group compartmentalizes everything and the other connects things in such a random manner it almost doesn't make any sense at all. I'm not so sure it goes along gender lines. I was the waffle and R poured spaghetti all over my compartmentalized ideas, connecting things in a way I've never considered before. That's one of the reasons I fell hard. That, and some seriously amazing chicken fajitas.
I was raised to believe in the bullet points. The exact nature of the bullet points changed almost monthly at times, dependent on the situation and the information I'd gotten that made sense. I was willing to rewrite them over and over again as required by having a Lutheran and Methodist as parents, going to an A/G church, a Baptist school, having a Seventh-Day Adventist friend, going to a Presbyterian church for two services a year, marrying a Methodist, and learning from YWAM (among other things). I'm learning, though, that it's not the right format for basic information. I've gone from building a building with the gold bricks of knowlege I've been given to building a bridge, to building a trampoline. And yes, those very images were involved. It's not about walling myself in, or even trying to cross over something. It's become more about connections to people. Relationships. Friendships. Love and community. Koinonia.
I was raised with the sword of Damocles over my head. Doom was everpresent. I was certain I'd escaped one form of 'doom' by taking the Master's hand and letting Him guide me toward Himself. I still am. The nature of my understanding of that 'Doom' has changed, though. However, I felt the sword from another couple of sources as well. If you know me well enough, or when I was younger, you can probably piece together what they may be. I'm finding out that though the information I had may have been correct, I can't live with the frayed string holding the sword above my head. And I shouldn't. Things will fall apart. Yes. Things are not wonderful, things can get worse in the beat of a heart. I'm not going to live like it's already happened, though. I can take the information, apply it to a situation, and make decisions that are positive in nature rather than reactive and negative based.
I have two children. My elder child is just eight, and he's a bundle of nervous, joyful energy. Just a few minutes ago, that energy was directed at making me laugh by putting two strawberries in his mouth like vampire fangs. It worked. He is a smart child, seeming to have my linear thought and his father's scholastic challenges. He loves math, needing to see how the numbers work like puzzle pieces before understanding how to reshape them himself. My younger child is five and a half. She's a (mostly) demure, quiet soul with my silliness and a touch of her father's morbid humor. She likes to twist words, making me laugh with the connections that she makes. She can twist the "spaghetti" around pretty well, and come up with some very unique ideas. Both children want to go into game design. If they do, I could see Thing One designing the actual mechanics of the game, and Thing Two helping to flesh out the storyline and the UI. But yknow. That's from far far away.
There were times in my life I was sure I would have a whole houseful of children, and other times I despaired of ever having any. I'm glad to have the two I have. From them, I've learned that time is precious, learning to speak another "love language" is hard but worth it, and that nothing else matters when those people you are solely responsible for are crying. There are things you'll do to cheer up your child that you probably wouldn't do in any other situation. Faces you'll make, songs you promised never to sing again... things like that. But it's worth it to see their smiles and know they love you, trust you, and understand you. They've been aware of the family Darmok for years, and speak it fluently. Which can be amusing and terrifying at turns.
I have changed a lot in 35 years. I have become a wife and mother. I have been to Africa and Europe. I have become Episcopalian and probably will stay that way for quite awhile if not for the rest of my life. I have made friends. I have written, read and sung. I have smiled, cried, laughed, screamed, hurt, ... I have lived. Not enough, of course. There is still much to do. But 35 years of life and 10 years of marriage seems like a good point at which I should stop, say "Oh!", and think a little about who I am now.
And stick a few rocks in the river nearby so I won't forget.