marriage is hard. one of the hardest thing i've ever done in fact.
in this disposable world, marriage is among the most threatened commodities. a lifetime promise that has a 50% exit clause.
this past weekend my youngest brother was married. it was a gorgeous weekend full of promise and sunny skies and brilliant vistas and a gathering of family and love all around. there was a cozy lodge, good food and a rockin' dance party. pretty dresses, handsome men. cocktails and jewels and new babies. touching speaches and inspiring toasts.
everything one wants in a wedding.
but me, i am in the middle of a marriage and that is a very different animal. i looked at the bride & groom, preparing to take off on their honeymoon and i thought: fuck, it's the 10-year marriage that deserves a honeymoon. someway to get back to the promise and the butterflies in your stomach and the feeling that your entire tribe is behind you, supporting your love. taking photos of your smiles, and your kisses and recording the loving look still in your eyes - even after a decade of being in the trenches together. stuffing $20 bills into your pocket during the money dance so the two of you can go away somewhere together and remember to be kind, to reconsider your vows, to have nothing but hours on end and an empty beach and a sunset to simply stare into one another's eyes.
an arrangement like that might prevent alot of divorces.
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a decade into marriage, life can become unintentionally transactional. there has been sufficient time for resentments and regrets to creep in, there are things that need to be healed. time spent on essential things like pg&e bills or deciding which school is best for your children or if homeschool would be better. negotiating who does dishes and who helps with homework. one of you does the grocery shopping while the other one carries them in from the car. and then, deciding which one will clean out the refrigerator when too many dinners have gone uncooked because life is so busy and all the groceries have gone off.
that is marriage. the daily grind of creating a life together and cleaning up all the messes that come along with it.
sometimes it is quite beautiful. when the kids say something so hilarious and you look at each other and think: we created that human being together. our love is THAT good. as good as that radiant child right there making us laugh.
and sometimes it is the safest feeling in the world. when life gets terrifying and hard and you wake at 3 in the morning freaking out about all the stress that is eating you alive and there is your mate, his warm toes against yours and a hand to hold because he is awake and worrying with you.
i still remember the day matt and i got married. and i still love him that much. but there is alot more to it now. there are unresolved arguments, agreements to disagree, conflicting desires and priorities, there is blame and there are hurt feelings...all of it tied up together in the fabric of this marriage.
in a way, the fact that we stay married in spite of it all says alot. it says we are in this together, for better or worse. and there is a faith that if we just stick it out through each phase, some harder than others, we will still be touching toes and holding hands in the middle of the night decades from now, many stories and arguments and make up sex and repeat honeymoons later, and it will all be worth it because this marriage was meant to be.
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if i had stood up to offer my own toast to the bride and groom this past weekend, i think it would have gone something like this:
matt and i fought all the way here. and sometimes marriage is like that. but don't give up on each other. if you want a sure path to spiritual growth, get married and stay married. there is nothing like marriage to push you up against your walls and ask if you can continue to love in spite of so many things. you will find the capacity of your love even greater than you ever imagined.
my uncle once said this at his own daughters wedding and i've never forgotten it.
I realized that of all institutions that human beings have invented - marriage is the most Holy - and indeed the fastest way to get to know God. Everyone who has been married for over a year knows it is the fastest way to gain spiritual enlightenment. Marriage makes prayer and meditation and long fasting, and lying on beds of nails, seem like games that children play when they are bored. A person who leaves a marriage to go to an ashram in India for spiritual evolution is a total wimp...in total denial that he is a total wimp. Living with another person day and night, down in the trenches, gives ample opportunity to practice every spiritual discipline known to man. If merely living together is not sufficient for spiritual growth --then have children and start to raise them. You will not need some guru sitting on a mountain to explain how to lose your ego. The activities of a householder parent are much more difficult than those of wimpy spiritual recluses. The recluse only has to eat when he pleases, associate or not with whom he pleases, go to bed when he pleases, think what he pleases and about what he pleases, and pray and meditate at his whim. If suddenly a small infant was put into his cave to be taken care of --his true character and level of spiritual evolution would soon become apparent.
his wisdom has stayed with me. my quest for joy and equanimity and balance and happiness and patience and unconditional love was put into hyperspace with marriage and motherhood. my capacity for love and forgiveness, tolerance and humor, humility and hope growing in equal measure with every fight and every kiss and every day-long grudge of silence, with each quiet hand reached out to the other, with every heavy footfall of anger. it's all there. it is part of it. and just because it is hard, and there is anger, it is still worth doing.
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i didn't get many photos of the wedding on my phone. but here are a few...especially fun because the theme of the wedding was 'mad men' and we all took our fashion cues from the era.
my sister, 7 months pregnant, posing with a cigarette in imitation of a real preggo lady circa 1962.
and me in a jackie-o dress, vintage coat and veil:
