There's this "fun" thing women are asked to do at most wedding showers.......no, not design a dress out of toilet paper. It's the one where we have to write our best piece of advice on marriage or love on a slip of paper and drop it in a jar. Then as their first year of marriage passes the newlyweds are supposed to pluck one of these slips out and read it. I went to one shower where the brides MOTHER wrote, "Never fry bacon in the nude." Pretty wise if you ask me.......BUT ANYWAY.....I always write the same thing at every shower, "Be careful what you say.....because once it is out there you can't take it back." Why....because that is one of the hardest things for me to remember. I screw it up EVERY time.
I don't mean to. I start of well. I am calm. I remind myself that "words hurt". And then when the conversation doesn't go the way I feel it should.... BAM.......WORD VOMIT!
Get this though....I don't do it to just anyone. I do it to the person I love most in this world. My husband Jeff.
Can someone please explain that to me why is it that we really do "always hurt the ones we love"? Why is it in our effort to build a better relationship through communication we end up saying things that HURT our relationships.
I don't know....maybe I am the only one that does it. I know my husband doesn't. As far as I can remember he has never said a hateful thing to me. How IS he able to do that?
Of course how does he do anything he does? The man is freaking amazing to me sometimes. He is so patient and kind and loving and funny. He is a better mother than I am and a better cook too. He allows me to be a stay at home mom and puts up with my fits of insanity whether it be a two month crafting marathon leading up to a craft show were I MIGHT make a couple hundred dollars, my insistence that he stop in the middle of the road so that I can take pictures of flowers, or my need to fill our house with young people and then proceed to stay up til all hours of the night talking with them. He bought me a camera when I thought I could be a photographer, a guitar when I wanted to learn to play so that we could sing around the fire on camping trips, every CD I ever ask for whether he likes the artist or not and a Rock Star or a Monster when he knows I'm draggin' a bit.
Yes, he is a flesh and blood HUMAN man. He has issues. But somehow I don't seem to remember those issues when he is clowning around with our friend Dann and making me laugh until I bray like a donkey and tears are pouring down my face. Or when I watch him doing cartwheels with a bunch of teenage girls on our daughters 18th birthday outing.
I love that he can build a shed AND design a piece of stained glass. That he pushed carts at Sam's Club full time and went to school four hours a day when I was pregnant with our oldest. That he makes a mean apple crisp AND is great at physics. That he busts out in fluent Spanish to our children almost daily just to keep them on their toes. That he watches Star Trek in all of it's incarnations with me even though he doesn't REALLY like it. That he can speak to the guys working in the shop where he works with the same respect with which he addresses the president of his company. That he puts one arm around the men he admires and loves at the same time he is shaking their hand. That he is the same man on Sunday morning in church as he is in the office on Monday morning. That he doesn't cuss or smoke. That he LOVES babies and baby talks our chihuahua. That he cried during "The Color Purple" and turned purple from laughing SOOO hard during "Taladega Nights". That he will stop someone in the store if he notices that they are wearing an insulin pump like him and that he WEARS that insulin pump 24/7 in order to live a longer more productive life with his family. And I LOVE that both of his ears are pierced although he works in the "corporate" world AND that without planing it we bought each other diamond earrings for our 21st anniversary.
And I guess more than anything...I love that that he still loves ME when I totally forget my favorite piece of advice to newlyweds.
I am blessed.
No comments:
Post a Comment