Together Together

Today is my anniversary. I’m not one for PDA on social. It weirds me out. So instead of telling YOU how much I love this guy, because I already told HIM to his actual face, I want to tell you what fourteen years of marriage has been like.

Hard. J/k. Sort of. And beautiful.

What you cannot understand when you get married for the first time is that you don’t really have a clue what marriage is about because you’ve never been, you know, married. You think you know because you read a book, but you don’t. You think you know because your parents are still married and they seem happy-ish, but you don’t. You think you know because you have so much advice floating around in your head for all your married friends, but you don’t. You just don’t know. And while marriage is a recipe of friendship, sex, prayer, logistics, finances, love, laundry, commitment and a litany of other abstractions you may have experience with, the mystery of what it means to spend your actual life with someone can only unfold before you one day at a time.

I did not understand the way we would have to lean into forgiveness and endurance. Not the kind of forgiveness after a singular argument which can be overt and direct and often simple. But the nuanced and complex kind of forgiveness that allows for pain through an entire season, which may be over weeks, months or even years. The kind of forgiveness that keeps picking up socks and making coffee and making love. Over our fourteen years together, my husband and I have had to forgive one another for things like withdrawal, workaholism, secrets, over-functioning, under-functioning, manipulation and an assortment of other behaviors which mirror the ways our individual and unique brokenness plays out in our daily lives.

And then there are the realities we have endured, not born out of our own waywardness, but out of life’s gifts - the kind that come to teach you hard lessons. We have lived through unemployment, depression, extended family horribleness, miscarriage, broken friendships, sickness, and more change than most families go through in a lifetime to name an obvious but select few.

But this coupling of forgiveness and endurance is simply what it takes to end up together together.

The first kind of together is the one that says I’m staying. We made it. This kind matters and it’s important and worth fighting for. This kind is when he makes the coffee in the morning and brings me a cup even though I was an asshole the night before. This kind shows up to his work event even though I am angry and resentful about the entire situation. This kind changes the sheets on the bed while the other one cleans up the child that just threw up in the bath. This kind makes dinner. Changes light bulbs. Pays bills. Keeps showing up.

But the second kind of together is what we are really after. Together together. The kind of together that draws your fingers towards one another across the console of the pick up truck. The kind of together that lets you ugly cry in his lap. The kind of together where you talk on the phone while you commute in separate cars to the kids basketball games because you haven’t seen each other all day and you know you’ll be too tired after bedtime and you need time to say all the things out loud to one another. The kind of together that sends you home after a professional victory because you’d rather open a bottle of wine by the fire with him than celebrate with anyone else. The kind that moves the house around to make an office for you after quit your job. The kind that finds a way to make love when you are both clouded by life’s darkness. The kind that prays with your face on the ground for him to find his way. The kind that walks in the door and cries at the sight of your face after unspeakable heartbreak because this is safe and this is home and this is the only place to be. With you. With you. With you.

Together together.