Marriage, Part-Times, and Other Oddities

Currently Reading: The Good Neighbors - Kin by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh
Current Playlist: "Everybody" by Ingrid Michaelson

I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.
--Candice Bergen

To be perfectly honest, there are moments when I forget I'm married, even after six months of rummaging around in the same space as my husband.
Not the "Oh hey he's cute, lemme ask for his number" forget I'm married. The "Oh my gosh! There's a MAN in my bed!" forget. I see pictures of Chris on facebook and go "Aw my boyfriend's a hottie . . . wait . . ." *glance down at left hand* "Husband. My HUSBAND is a hottie, haha. Wow, that actually happened."

I asked Chris if it still strikes him as odd. He just smiled, nodded. "Yeah, it's a new realization sometimes. I'm so lucky."
And then I melt to a puddle at his feet.

Life's established its own rhythm. We work, we clean, I cook, we sleep, begin all over again. It feels perfectly natural. I go back to my parents and I jump back into "Sister Sarah" mode, as if I never left. We go to Chris's parents, and it's just like we were dating again. Still no going into his old bedroom by ourselves with the door closed . . . personally, I think we're waaaay past that. I mean, the man did marry me. We walk out to his car after visiting family, and I have to stop myself from kissing him goodnight and going right back through my parents' door. I'm used to driving away, back to the apartment, now. It just took a while. It's weird.

Some days, it feel like my path has been laid out before: marriage, cook, work, produce spawn, cook some more, feed spawn, clean some more, change spawn's soiled goods, cook and clean some more, die. I see my friends heading off to grad school, travelling, starting careers, and here I am: a part-time library clerk, a B.A. possessor who doesn't know what the crap to do with it, an insignificant speck. People told me I'd do great things. I hated that statement then--Do what? How? What do you expect? Now, I just cringe. There are days where I wake up and feel like a complete failure. It's the 21st century--women are supposed to do more than homemaking, right? I look at my cooking and see June Cleaver smiling back at me out of the casserole. Oh gracious. There's more to life, isn't there? Oh please tell me there's more than pots, cakes, babies, diapers, and teenagers.

Then God thumps me over the head. What do I mean "Is there MORE"?! Of course there is! But there's more right where I am now. I don't have to be Hillary Clinton or Oprah Winfrey to be someone special (and thank God for that!)

God has given me so much. He gave me Chris. He gave me the part-time. He allowed to me not KILL my husband through accidentally FOOD POISONING or whatever else I could have screwed up in the kitchen . . . in fact, He allowed my husband to actually LOVE what I cook. He gave me everything I am and everything HE is. That's a lot. That's a whooooole motherload of a lot. And to whom much is given, much is required. I don't know what that "much" is yet . . . but maybe one day I'll know. If not, it's ok. I may never rewrite history or be anything other than me, and that's ok. It's an honor to do what I do, it really is. It's a gift just to live, to try, to have someone beside me through it all.

Mother Teresa said:"We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love." It's true, because, sometimes, everything feels so very, very small. And that's all right.

So for now, I'll focus on the little things . . . and on not being freaked out by the man in my bed.